





- _ - . , • Or 9 

r o o o') V-M^r-. <,[• o 

., °-£ " „^° ^ •'•»•• a? o, *.,,♦ 

, ^ b «- v * ^\\V£^y%/ 2 , ° 

* <? ^ ■ 



° 

V ** ^ °.‘ 

'•••* A v* <* 

> *1^ * «£ 





•°J^ ** *^5 , 4 ,^ » 1 ' * ♦ '<** 

V x^owr^* 4.N * &t{f7??2? ~ r 

O > 



'° • * ** 4 «G* 

0^ o * a * 

/* V ft 49 - CP 

**o« * 


* > . V . ' 

«i. !$■ 


L*<p. 


V>* 4 *^ *• 




*. % ,, 

• . 

o AV^, * 

* *V o _ „ . 

^ . * t$r ^? . •* -a, 

A’ ^ *<» # * * «(r ^ 

,# , • ‘ ’* ♦ <£* , 0 ^ c •"•» ”*0 

^ \ %, , C ■ *-^v-v^ O 

* ' ■* ^ Cr 


* ^ 




, . ®* •• • '•’ f° V '*r£«* ^ 

’ '•# c* * 0 V fc * * • f *** * v 

• ^ A> ♦ 

° <^rv * 

° 'W 



«■ <S r s r //l\) > 

, .„ V** 7 ’*> 0 5 . 

' ** A^ ' .vyl’o % <^°,‘* 

w ;mmi ^ ^ • 

‘Vr*' a <, *-?.?** ^ ^ ^ ° , 

r yjfipz* V / .•iL , ». v * ^ .t.., v °’ 





ri ^£* <<* ^ 

.r ... ‘-•o’ k# 

« v ^a^»*. •>. 



< 



f • 


V\ v ^ 


^ v r vyjf^xF * ^ 

% a \^ O *- f «».* , » 4 ^ ^ '✓ 

• »• ' * 4 <^. 0 H a *P * * 

* VvTfe. ’ w o . c ^^v _% 



a. ° k* 1 ^ 

A- V '*^* jr 

r >!«k*, A ■' ... <-. 



” ■<?„ i') 1 ' ,'JVW. .<(, ' ,V» 0 .‘. '■#• 



W 


* *€? ^ • 

4 ,<r ^ •»: 



AV * 

•. • 


><9' 


klj »P'a 
-ffeliSK 


• ❖ v 'V. 


<*♦ ^ 








A' 

% ° A* 

« o > » 

. ^/,„- v j . 0 •*. *. 

» n o ^ • 

aV " & * o 

A v .W^ ^ V 




.. v*V 

* A^r 

* «? 

4 4/ 

° * *• * aCt V O rf *< 

* „CT o<>"«* ^o ” A^ V 

< ^ o 4 *b & .' 

; ^ 

► cv AZW&f o * 

O ♦.,,•* A 0> 

* - # -°* CX A> 

- V A* * l 

; V 

O 

4 *v *$> ° 



* ^ 0 
,<r < 

■rsr \J * 

- v*cr 

o AO 

> * <= 


%‘^*v v T ^>* %‘ : 

> ~V *’••* c\ <<T s’V/* \> f <*o* 


cjp u> : 

■Ojp ^Ca. « 

<y ^ * 




' c 5 > ^n - 

- / ^ \ 



RUNNING THE RIVER 

































































































• , 






























































































































































































































































































































































































































FIRE BROKE OUT IN A DOZEN PLACES AT ONCE. 


Page Jiy 


Running The 
River 

A STORY OF ADVENTURE 
AND SUCCESS 

BY 

George Cary Eggleston 

AUTHOR OF 

“ Camp Venture,” 

“ The Last of the Flat Boats,” 

“ The Bale Marked Circle X,” 

“ Dorothy South,” etc. 

ILLUSTRATED 



New York 

A. S. BARNES & COMPANY 
! 9°4 



fzi 
, tso'K 

Cjj ^ 


THfc UPRARV ^F “ 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

MAP H t $04 

Cepyrighi Entry 

) (< 14 ^ 

CLASS A XXe, Ne 

9 ^ 72-6 

COrY A. 


Copyright, 1904, 

By. A. s. Barnes & Co., 
Published, March. 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I.— A Steamboat Disaster, i 

II.— Consequences, . . . . . . .17 

III. — Room at the Bottom, 26 

IV. — The Plan of Campaign, 34 

V.— Hard Aground, 43 

VI.— A Happy Thought, 56 

VII.— “That’s All,” 68 

VIII.— The Hole in Joe’s Head, .... 77 

IX.— The Beginning of the Voyage, ... 86 

X.— Trade, 94 

XI.— A Sunday Talk, 103 

XII.— Tried as by Fire, . . . . . .112 

XIII. — Joe’s Advice, 119 

XIV. — “ Fevernager” and Other Things, . . 125 

XV.— An Errand of Mercy, 137 

XVI.— Reinforcements, 148 

XVII.— Supper and Sleep, 160 

XVIII.— The Little Doctor’s Story, . . .172 

XIX.— Sentiment and Doughnuts, . . . .180 

XX.— The Little Doctor’s Ideas, . . .193 

XXI.— The Little Doctor’s Doings, . . .205 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXII.— Joe’s Case and Chalk, 220 

XXIII.— Joe’s Interference with Plans, . * .226 

XXIV.— The First Night of the Voyage, . . 233 

XXV. — Down the Mississippi, 240 

XXVI. — On the Atchafalaya, 254 

XXVII.— The Red River Raft, Orchids, and Some 

Other Things, 267 

XXVIII.— Homeward Bound, 279 

XXIX. — The Way it All Ended, .... 286 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


FULL PAGE. 


Fire broke out in a dozen places at once, 

Frontispiece 


FACING PAGE 

Add that, Theodore, 

. . . 36 

The mate struggled to release himself, 

• 54 

Building the store-boat, 

. 79 

Their customers were of all sorts and conditions, 

. 96 

The wonders of the forest, .... 

. 270 

IN THE TEXT. 

PAGE 

Mississippi flat-boat, 

. 13 

Stem-wheel steamboat, 

. 40 

Corn stalk, 

. . . 65 

Prairie grass, 

• 113 

Levee scene, 

. 202 

Cotton plant and gin. 

. 252 

Live oak, 

• 255 

Atchafalaya swamp 

. . . 260 

Cypress swamp, 




















































































































































































































































» 






















































































































RUNNING THE RIVER 



CHAPTER I 

A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 

The three Faraday boys were sitting on the for- 
ward boiler deck guards of the steamer Highflyer , 
bound from St. Louis to Cincinnati. 

They sat in heavily built arm-chairs of the kind 
known in those days as “ steamboat chairs.” They 
sat well to the front, looking up the river, and 
their feet were resting upon the guard rail. 

There were other passengers scattered about 
the “guards,” as the promenade deck of a West- 
ern river steamboat was called. 

These were sitting in groups, talking in high or 
low tones, according to the varying degrees of 
their refinement, enjoying the beauty of the June 
morning and of the river Ohio, which means 
“beautiful” in the language of the Indians who 
named it. 

The time was about 1850, and the river was in 


1 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


its glory then as the great highway of commerce 
and travel. Railroads were beginning to be built 
in what was then the West, but they had not yet 
begun to challenge the supremacy of the river. 
Each railroad consisted of a short, ill-built line 
from one town to another. There -were no 
through lines, and the passenger who sought to 
travel by rail, in the country west of Ohio, must 
encounter many interruptions in his journey, 
sometimes finding himself obliged to cover gaps 
between railroads by stage journeys occupying 
half a night or whole nights. So it happened that 
west of Cincinnati all travel and all commerce 
sought the river as its most convenient and most 
comfortable highway. 

Even east of Cincinnati every railroad journey 
was broken into a multitude of short trips with 
long waits between. Thus if one wanted to go 
from Cincinnati to New York, he must start at six 
o’clock in the morning on a train that ran at the 
rate of about ten or twelve miles an hour, to 
Columbus. There he must wait five hours for a 
train that would carry him to Newark, about a 
dozen miles farther on his journey. Then came 
another wait, from midnight till morning, and so 
on to the end of the journey, with long waits 
everywhere, with slow trains of a sort so uncom- 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 


3 


fortable that in our time they would not be re- 
garded as fit even for the lowest class of emi- 
grants. There were no sleeping-cars; no chair 
cars; no ordinarily comfortable day-cars. 

The rails were not made of steel, but of soft 
iron, and were very light. Usually they were 
badly worn at the ends. Often they were mere 
straps of iron, like wagon tires, spiked down to 
timbers. They were nowhere fastened together 
at their ends, and so every wheel that ran off 
the end of one of them and upon another did 
so with a jolt that would positively scare the 
traveler on one of our twentieth-century rail- 
roads. 

There were no air-brakes, no safety platforms, 
no improved couplings. The cars were joined to- 
gether only by loose chain links. When the en- 
gineer, who had no personal control of the train, 
wished to stop it, he blew his whistle as a signal 
to “ down-brakes.” Then brakemen, stationed on 
the platforms between the cars, put on the brakes 
by turning hand wheels made for that purpose. 
As there was no possibility of concert of action 
among them, some got the brakes on before others 
did, and so one car ran into another with intoler- 
able joltings until at last the train was brought to 
a stand at the station. And as every train stopped 


4 RUNNING THE RIVER 

at every station this shaking up occurred every 
few miles. 

When the trains were in motion the jolting was 
as violent as that of a wagon running over a cordu- 
roy road. It was impossible to read, and, because 
of the noise, almost impossible to talk or to hear. 
Every large town into which railroads ran com- 
pelled the several lines to place their stations at 
widely separated points, so that the traffic might 
“ leave money in the town,” in the shape of omni- 
bus fares, dinner charges, porters’ fees, and the 
like. 

The very best speed made at any point was 
about twenty miles an hour. Ordinarily the aver- 
age was not greater than ten miles an hour, and 
with the long hours of waiting at points where the 
passenger must change cars, the journey from 
Cincinnati to New York could not be made at a 
greater average speed than five or six miles an 
hour. A man on horseback or in a buggy, with 
relays of horses, could easily have beaten the rail- 
road passenger in a race from the city on the Ohio 
to the city on the Hudson. 

West of Cincinnati the conditions of railway 
travel were even worse. The several railroads did 
not connect at all. Often the traveler had to 
bridge gaps of from ten to fifty miles by stage- 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 5 

coach, and even when the road was continuous it 
was so badly constructed and so incapably man- 
aged that there was no possibility of knowing 
when any point would be reached. As late as 
1856 students going from Louisville to the Indi- 
ana Asbury University at Greencastle were often 
compelled to spend three or four days on the rail, 
though the distance was only about one hun- 
dred miles. That is to say, they could not count 
upon making, by railroad, more than thirty or 
forty miles in a day. They might have made 
half as good time on foot. 

So in the middle of the nineteenth century the 
river remained the great highway of commerce 
and of travel, as it had been during all the years 
of the great West’s upbuilding. It is not too 
much to say that but for the Mississippi River 
system, with its sixteen thousand miles of practi- 
cally navigable waterways, the settlement of the 
great Middle West and the upbuilding of power- 
ful commonwealths there would have required at 
least a century more for their accomplishment. 

At the time when these three Faraday boys — 
Theodore, Allan and Edgar, — sat on the forward 
guards of the steamer Highflyer , admiring the 
beauty and nobility of the stream, that great river 
system was still in its glory as the public thorough- 


6 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


fare of commerce throughout the vast valley that 
lies between the Alleghanies on the east and the 
Rocky Mountains (two thousand miles away) on 
the west. 

There were more than four thousand steam- 
boats at that time, carrying freight and passengers 
on the Mississippi and its tributaries, while a still 
greater commerce, so far as freight was concerned, 
was carried down all the rivers upon flat-boats, 
keel-boats, and rafts. i 

The outlet was at New Orleans, bu*t St. Louis 
was the controlling center of this great trade. 
The boys were talking of all this as they sat there 
with their feet upon the rail. 

“You see,” said Theodore, the oldest of the 
boys, “ St. Louis was founded as a fur-trading set- 
tlement, and all the men who had genius for trade 
went there. They extended their traffic up the 
Mississippi, up the Missouri and its tributaries all 
the way to the Rocky Mountains and across 
them. Then they sent out their trappers and 
traders by the Oregon trail across the plains and 
the mountains and even to the Pacific coast 
long before California and Utah and the rest be- 
came American possessions. Then, too, they 
opened the Santa Fe trail, and traded with the 
Spanish and Mexicans long before the annex- 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 


7 

ation of that region to the United States was 
thought of.” 

“ But the fur trade is done for,” suggested 
Allan. “ So what keeps St. Louis going? ” 

“ Well, for one thing, the fur trade isn’t ‘ done 
for,’ as you say. St. Louis merchants handle more 
furs to-day than they ever did, and the trade will 
continue for a long time — probably for all time. 
You see there are vast regions in the fur-produc- 
ing country which can never become farming set- 
tlements, but must always remain wild and mainly 
uninhabited. Fur-bearing animals will continue 
to occupy those regions, and when they are pro- 
tected by proper laws, as they will be some day, 
against indiscriminate hunting and trapping out 
of season, they will furnish more furs than ever.” 

How accurately Theodore Faraday judged the 
future in this matter may be shown by the fact 
that Captain Chittenden, the historian of the 
American fur trade, writing as late as the year 
1902, says that St. Louis’s trade in furs is abso- 
lutely greater now than at any earlier period. 

“ But how is it,” asked Edgar, “ that we St. 
Louis boys never hear nowadays of the fur trade ? 
We have all read Irving’s ‘Bonneville’ and ‘Asto- 
ria,’ of course, but we hear of nothing of that sort 


now. 


8 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Well, that is only because all things are rela- 
tive,” answered Theodore. “ In the days of the 
Sublettes and Ashley and Chouteau and Wyeth, 
the fur trade was St. Louis’s chief interest, and 
everybody thought about it and talked about it. 
It is now absolutely greater than it was then, as I 
have said, but relatively it is of small importance.” 

“How do you mean?” asked Edgar, who was, 
as Allan used to say, born with an interrogation 
mark in his mouth. 

“ Why, the river trade has expanded,” answered 
Theodore, “into proportions that the fur trade 
never even remotely approached ; and every year 
it grows greater. You know how the steamboats 
lie three deep at the St. Louis levee. This great 
Western country of ours is just beginning to 
grow. This boat and father’s other boat, the Morn- 
ing Star , are bringing out immigrants by thou- 
sands to settle in Missouri, Illinois, and far up the 
Missouri and the Mississippi. There are dozens 
of other steamboats in the trade, you know, and 
St. Louis is the center of it. 

“ Then there is the great trade down the river, 
for the growth of population down there is equally 
rapid, and besides, that is the road to the sea. St. 
Louis is becoming the center of all that trade, and 
although the city has only about eighty thousand 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 


9 


people now, and Cincinnati calls herself ‘ The 
Queen City of the West,’ another ten years will 
see St. Louis the largest city west of the Alle- 
ghanies. Every year nearly doubles the produc- 
tion of corn, hogs, wheat, and other farm products 
in the country that St. Louis can claim as her 
own for trade purposes.” 

Theodore Faraday had been studying all these 
things carefully, and he had a good deal more to 
say on the subject to his brothers; but just at this 
point he was interrupted, and it was many a day 
before he and they had an opportunity to talk 
again on such subjects. 

The Highflyer having passed the mouth of the 
Tennessee River at Paducah, was approaching 
Smithland, a little town at the mouth of the Cum- 
berland, a dozen miles farther up the Ohio. An- 
other steamboat was just rounding out from 
Smithland to pursue her voyage down stream. 
She was thronged with passengers, and all her 
decks were covered with red farm implements — 
plows, harrows, wagons, and the like — which she 
was carrying to St. Louis, to be sent thence up the 
Missouri River for use on the newly settled farms 
there. 

“ It’s the Morning Star— father’s other boat,” 
said one of the boys, observing the smoke-stack 


IO 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


devices that served to identify the two boats of the 
Highflyer line. “And she’s loaded down to the 
water’s edge, too,” he gleefully added, rejoicing in 
the prosperity that full cargoes for these two boats 
must bring to his father. 

Captain Faraday, the father of these three boys, 
was the commander of the Highflyer , and the sole 
owner of both these steamboats. He was a typi- 
cal man of the West, full of energy and courage, 
and abundant common sense. Born in Pennsyl- 
vania, he had gone to the West in his boyhood 
with his parents, who settled on a farm in south- 
ern Indiana when that State was just beginning to 
grow. 

His parents being poor and having a large fam- 
ily, Tom had set out at the age of fifteen to “do 
for himself” on the river. His total possessions 
at that time, as he used afterward to relate, con- 
sisted of “ one pair of tow-linen trousers, one tow- 
linen shirt, and one tow-linen suspender.” Tow- 
linen was the very cheapest of cloth, made of the 
refuse fibers of the hemp. The boy who had set 
out thus meagerly equipped, with no shoes or 
socks, and even with no hat, had prospered mightily 
from the first. In that great undeveloped West- 
ern country there was a place and a use for every 
man or boy who was willing to work and who 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER n 

could do things. Tom Faraday had very little 
education, but he possessed a shrewd intelligence, 
a quick wit, strong arms, and a gift of seeing how 
to meet and overcome difficulties. At twenty he 
had married and settled on a farm in southern 
Indiana on the Ohio River. Thence he made 
many flat-boat voyages to New Orleans, thus 
familiarizing himself with the conditions of the 
rapidly developing commerce on the river. 

At the age of thirty he was pilot on a steamboat 
plying between Pittsburg and New Orleans. 
Then foreseeing the future he removed to St. 
Louis, and at the age of fifty he was the sole 
owner of two of the finest steamboats on the river, 
both engaged in the very lucrative trade from Cin- 
cinnati to St. Louis. 

In his early manhood he had served several 
terms in the Indiana legislature as Representa- 
tive and Senator. But he couldn’t spell, and he 
knew little of English grammar. He always wrote 
“in trust” when he meant “interest,” and in a 
score of other ways manifested the imperfection 
of his education. 

But while Captain Faraday had mightily pros- 
pered and was now a rather rich man, as riches 
were reckoned in those days, his keen intelligence 
enabled him to see clearly that conditions in the 


12 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


West were rapidly changing, and that no such 
career as his had been would be open to his boys 
unless they could be better equipped with educa- 
tion than he had been. 

Owning two steamboats and commanding one 
of them, he might easily have put his boys into 
good positions on the river or in some other kind 
of business. 

But he was wise enough to refuse to do that. 
He resolutely insisted that their youth should be 
devoted exclusively to the work of securing the 
best education to be had. 

The great public-school system which is now 
the glory of the Middle West had not been born 
in 1850. But the schoolmaster was abroad in 
those days, and there were private schools in St. 
Louis of a very excellent kind. They were ex- 
pensive, but Captain Faraday was not disposed to 
spare money in the education of his boys. He 
sent them, at whatever cost, to the best schools in 
the city. 

Theodore, the oldest of the three, had completed 
the school course, and was on his way with his 
two brothers to visit his father’s relatives in Penn- 
sylvania. It was the plan that the three boys 
should pass the summer there, after which Theo- 
dore was to enter Indiana Asbury University at 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 


*3 


Greencastle as a student, the other two return- 
ing to St. Louis to finish their preparation for 
college. 

As the two boats approached each other, their 
pilots sounded one tap each on their big bells. 
In those days signals were given by the bell and 
not by the whistle as is done in our time. The 
signals given — one tap on each bell— meant that 
each boat was to steer to the right in passing. 
This would let the Morning Star swing out into 
the stream while the Highflyer was running in 
shore to make her landing at Smithland. 

But the Cumberland River had suddenly risen 
during the last few days, and was relatively so 
much higher than the Ohio as to send almost a 
torrent of water out into the larger stream as a 
cross current. At that moment three flat-boats, 
heavily laden and lashed together — as flat-boats 
often were when their crews wanted each other’s 
company — were floating down the river nearer 
the shore than either of the steamboats. 



MISSISSIPPI FLAT-BOAT 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


14 

As the flat-boat flotilla drifted into the cross 
current that came out of the Cumberland, it was 
suddenly driven out from shore and forced into 
the space between the two steamboats. Just how 
it all happened nobody ever knew, but in the con- 
fusion both steamboats tried to change their 
course, and a minute later one of them ran the flat- 
boats down, while the other plunged full tilt into 
the side of her sister steamboat. Her prow cut 
through all obstacles and crashed into the boilers 
and furnaces, scattering fire in every direction and 
causing an escape of steam that quickly enveloped 
both boats, scalding many persons terribly. 

The flat-boats went to the bottom instantly. 
The two steamboats were quickly aflame from 
stem to stern, while the passengers and the 
men of the crews had no choice but to leap into 
the river to escape the flames and the scalding 
steam. 

The three Faraday boys were self-possessed 
enough to do the best thing that could have been 
done under the circumstances. 

“ Throw those chairs overboard,” called out 
Allan, “and everything else you can lay your 
hands on that will float.” 

While the others were throwing the chairs into 
the water in the hope that they might serve as life- 


A STEAMBOAT DISASTER 


r S 

preservers for some of the helpless people who 
were struggling in the river, for at that time no 
steamboat carried regular life-preservers, Allan 
Faraday hurriedly lifted a number of stateroom 
doors and Venetian blinds off their hinges and 
threw them over. Then he bethought him of still 
another resource. There were cornhusk mat- 
tresses in all the bunks of all the staterooms, and 
calling to his brothers, he set to work with their 
assistance to pitch as many as possible of these 
into the river. 

Then the Highflyer s boilers exploded with the 
force of gunpowder and a crash like that of a 
lightning stroke. In the next instant Allan felt 
himself high in the air, and falling he knew not 
how far. 

Expert swimmer that he was — for every boy on 
those Western rivers knew all there was to know 
about swimming — he spread out his legs and arms 
so as to break the fall into the water and limit the 
depth to which he must sink. 

Suddenly he struck the water with great vio- 
lence and sank until his feet touched the bot- 
tom. He struck out with all his might in the 
hope of being able to reach the surface again 
before his ability to hold his breath should be 
exhausted. 


1 6 RUNNING THE RIVER 

In this he failed. The blow he had received 
from the impact of the water had so far stunned 
him that he was no longer complete master of 
himself, and so in spite of all his efforts he in- 
haled a great quantity of water before rising to the 
surface, and instantly he lost all consciousness. 


CHAPTER II 


CONSEQUENCES 

When Allan Faraday came to consciousness 
again he found himself upside down. Two strong 
men, standing upon two goods boxes, were hold- 
ing him up by the legs with his head downward, 
and shaking the water out of his lungs. He was 
coughing, sneezing, and taking breath in irregular 
gasps. 

Presently the men laid him down upon the 
ground, and soon the breathing became easier and 
more regular. His brothers were standing by, but 
he could ask them no questions, for the reason 
that every attempt he made to talk brought on a 
violent coughing fit. 

Understanding the eager question in his eyes, 
Theodore answered it. 

“ Father is safe,” he said, “ though terribly 
scalded by the steam. Both boats are completely 
destroyed, and about twenty people have lost their 
lives. The rest were saved mainly by clinging to 
the chairs, mattresses, shutters, and doors that 

you made us throw overboard.” 

2 17 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


The boy made no mention of the fact that he 
and his brother Edgar had saved many lives by 
their expert swimming and by their cool-headed 
direction of rescue parties sent out from the shore 
in skiffs, but everybody else was talking about 
that, and everybody continued to talk about it for 
many weeks afterward, all sounding the praises of 
the Faraday boys. 

After a day or so of rest Allan recovered his 
strength, and the three boys consulted concerning 
the future. 

“ There is only one thing to be done now,” said 
Theodore. “We must get father to St. Louis 
on the first steamboat that comes along. He 
needs better treatment than he can get in this 
little town.” 

“Can he stand the removal?” asked Edgar. 
“ Is he strong enough? ” 

“Yes, the doctor thinks so. You see it is only 
a question of carrying him on board the steam- 
boat. Once there, he can rest as easily as where 
he is now. At St. Louis he can be taken to a 
hospital where good nursing and skillful treatment 
will bring him round in time — though I’m afraid 
it will be a long time, particularly if he worries as 
he is doing now.” 

“ But why should he worry? ” 


CONSEQUENCES 19 

“Why, of course we’re all ruined,” answered 
Theodore. “ Don’t you understand that every- 
thing father had — all the accumulation of his life- 
time — was invested in the Highflyer and the 
Morning Star , and there is nothing left of them ? 
And the worst of it is that in spite of his burns 
father’s head is clear, so that he knows the extent 
of the disaster, and it is worrying him.” 

“Was there no insurance?” asked Edgar. 

“ Yes, a few thousand dollars on the Highflyer 
— none at all on the Morning Star . Her insur- 
ance ran out before she left Cincinnati, and the 
rates there are so much higher than in St. Louis 
that her captain decided not to renew the policy 
till he got to St. Louis. But what little insurance 
there was will be more than swallowed up, father 
thinks, by the damages to be paid.” 

“ Damages? For what?” asked both the other 
boys in a breath. 

“ Why, for the loss of the three flat-boats with 
their cargoes, and for all the lives lost.” 

“ But father wasn’t to blame for that.” 

“ Certainly not. But the people concerned 
don’t look at the matter that way, and perhaps the 
courts may not. At any rate, it is the business of 
a steamboat to keep out of the way of flat-boats. 
Father has already been notified of suits for the 


! 20 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


value of the three flat-boats and their cargoes, and 
he is certain that the friends of many of the 
drowned people will sue for damages. Father is 
completely ruined, and we three boys must get to 
work.” 

The other two sat silent for a time. Then 
Allan, big-hearted, generous, unselfish fellow that 
he was, said: 

“It won’t matter much to Ed and me. We’ll 
find something to do without difficulty, and we’ll 
take care of Jeannette till you get your education, 
Theodore. You have the scholarship at Asbury, 
so that there will be no tuition fees to pay, and by 
living cheaply you can get on on what Ed and I 
can let you have out of our earnings.” 

“Yes,” chimed in Ed, “that’s how we’ll manage. 
A1 and I don’t need any more education than we 
have already — at least we can get on without any 
more.” There was a big lump in the boy’s throat 
as he said this, for it had been a precious dream to 
him to make a man of education and high intel- 
lectual attainment of himself. “ But you must go 
on ” 

“ Stop ! ” cried Theodore with a passion in his 
voice that his brothers had never heard there be- 
fore. The boys grew silent instantly, but Theo- 
dore did not speak again for the space of several 


CONSEQUENCES 21 

minutes. He could not utter a sound for the 
emotion that racked and tortured him. He sprang 
to his feet and walked hurriedly back and forth 
upon the river bank whither they had gone for 
this consultation. His brothers were awe-stricken 
by his manifest emotion, and they kept still. At 
last, with flushed face and choking utterance, the 
older boy spoke. 

“ So that is the sort of swine you take me to be, 
is it? No, I take that back, boys, you meant it 
generously, and I can never thank you enough for 
your thought. But I should scorn and loathe and 
detest myself if I were capable of accepting such 
self-sacrifice at your hands. No, I have already 
had more education than either of you, and I am 
the one to work for the others. It shall be my 
one object in life now to rescue and rebuild the 
great steamboat business that our father has 
created by the efforts of a lifetime. Incidently 
you boys shall be educated if it is within my 
power to do that in addition to the other, but the 
other takes first place in my mind. I am going to 
run the river, and sooner or later I am going to 
build a new Highflyer and a new Morning Star 
or else I’ll change my name from Faraday to 
Smith or Jones or Jenkins, and deny to all men 
that I am my father’s son.” 


22 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


The boy was tremendously excited, and Edgar 
saw the necessity of calming him. So, in his 
habitually playful way, he said : 

“I’m a very commonplace person all over and 
clear through. It occurs to me, therefore, that we 
fellows had better earn our wealth before we de- 
cide how we shall spend it. In my humble judg- 
ment all three of us will have to go to work, and 
the quicker we do it, after getting back to St. 
Louis, the better it will be for all concerned. We 
should just now be thinking of the how, the where, 
and the when. If we succeed in earning anything 
beyond the cost of bread and butter we can then 
decide what to do with the surplus. I don’t imag- 
ine it will be so great as to embarrass us. What 
shall we set about, Teddy?” 

“ I don’t at all know,” answered Theodore, upon 
whom the speech had had its intended effect. 
“We must first get to St. Louis. Then we 
must look for work and opportunities. I sup- 
pose we’ll all have to run the river in one way or 
another.” 

At that time “the river” offered to young men 
of energy the best and most abundant opportuni- 
ties that were anywhere to be found. There were 
thousands of steamboats plying in every direction. 
There were still more thousands of flat-boats, and 


CONSEQUENCES ~ 23 

great rafts of logs or lumber, and at every town 
and village on that vast river system there were 
wharf-boats. Every steamer must have from two 
to four pilots, two engineers, four “ strikers” — 
young men learning to be engineers — two or three 
and sometimes four clerks, two stewards, two 
mates, fifteen or twenty deck hands, a dozen 
roustabouts, a dozen firemen, ten or twenty “ cabin 
boys,” as the young men who waited upon the 
passengers at table were called, and a number of 
other employees. Every flat-boat had its crew of 
a dozen men. Every wharf-boat had its clerks 
and freight handlers. In brief, “the river” fur- 
nished employment to a multitude of men, and the 
western youth who had need of work and wages 
turned at once to “ the river ” as his best reliance. 
On the other hand, the river service was so desir- 
able in every way that it was often overcrowded, 
and it was difficult for a young man to secure any 
of the more desirable appointments. Not only 
were river wages much higher than those paid 
anywhere on shore, but there was a glamour of 
romance and travel about “running the river” as 
the phrase went, which strongly tempted young 
men. 

So it came about that a young man who sought 
employment on the river often found it difficult to 


24 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


secure. Theodore Faraday understood all this, 
so he said : 

“ It won’t be easy to get good places, but we are 
all strong and active, and if worst comes to worst 
we can ship as deck hands or roustabouts. That’s 
rough work of course, and our companions will be 
a rather low sort of men, but at any rate the work 
is honest ” 

“Yes,” broke in Allan, “and whatever else hap- 
pens we’ve simply got to take good care of Jean- 
nette.” 

“Amen!” said Edgar. “We’ll do that if we 
have to remain deck hands or roustabouts for the 
rest of our natural lives.” 

“ Of course we will,” answered Theodore. “ I’d 
do anything on a steamboat except keep bar and 
sell whisky. I draw the line there. But short of 
that I’ll do anything in order to provide for Jean- 
nette. But we sha’n't long remain deck hands or 
roustabouts even if we have to begin with that. 
We have brains, I think, and there’s a market for 
brains. I am going on the river to stay, and I 
shall set out to make myself a steamboat owner 
and captain before many years pass, and I expect 
you two fellows to do the same. Meanwhile we 
must just do the best we can till a chance for 
something better comes. The first thing is to get 


CONSEQUENCES 


2 5 


father to St. Louis. He is terribly scalded, and 
must have better treatment than he can get here. 
The Mohawk , of the rival line, is expected to-night, 
and we’ll put father on board of her.” 

“ Where is the passage money to come from ? ” 
asked Allan. 

“ I don’t know. We’ll put him on board. Then 
we’ll negotiate that.” 

“ It won’t bother us much,” said Edgar. “ Steam- 
boat men ar’n’t hogs, and I’ll undertake to say 
that the captain of the Mohawk will order his 
clerk to write ‘D. H.,’ meaning ‘ deadhead,’ after 
our names on the passenger list.” 

“Oh, of course,” answered Teddy. “And 
there’s the boat now coming round the bend.” 


<D 

CHAPTER III 

ROOM AT THE BOTTOM 

When the Faraday boys looked more closely 
into their affairs they found matters much worse 
with them than they had at first supposed. Their 
father’s injuries for one thing were even more 
severe than they had believed, especially the 
injury to his eyes. Fortunately, he had held his 
breath when the explosion came, and so had not 
inhaled any of the fiercely superheated steam ; but 
his burns were terrible both in their extent and 
their severity. The doctors at the hospital in St. 
Louis were able to say that they hoped for his ulti- 
mate recovery, but the only prediction they could 
make with any confidence was that his illness 
must continue for six months or a year at the 
least. In the mean while he was helpless even to 
advise his children, and as their mother had died 
some years before, they were forced to rely wholly 
upon themselves. 

They found, too, that they had only about ten 
days’ grace before they must vacate the house in 
which they had lived ever since they could re- 

26 


ROOM AT THE BOTTOM 


27 

member. It had been condemned to make way 
for a new street of the rapidly expanding city. 

Fortunately, their father owed no debts except 
small tradesmen’s bills, and so they decided to sell 
the furniture at once. 

“ It will give us a little capital to work on,” said 
Theodore, “and that’s what we most need. I’ve 
heard father say many times that the hardest task 
he ever had was the getting of his first thousand 
dollars. When a man sits down in the woods to 
make a home for himself the first thing he must 
do is to get an ax and a hoe. Till he has them 
he can do nothing. It is much the same way with 
money. Money is a tool. One who has a little 
capital can do many things easily that he couldn’t 
do at all if he had not capital. So we’ll sell out 
everything and take the money to work with.” 

In a strict legal sense the boys had no right to 
sell their father’s household goods, but as he owed 
no debts of consequence, nobody objected, and so 
long as no objection was raised they could do as 
they liked, knowing that their father on his recov- 
ery, if he ever should recover, would sanction their 
acts. All that he had been able to say to them 
was: “ I can’t even advise you, boys. You must 
just do the best you can. You must take care of 
Jeannette at all hazards.” 


28 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


And they had assured him that whatever else 
might happen their only sister should be well 
cared for. So now they planned how best to fulfill 
that promise, and how best to carry out their other 
purpose — the re-establishment of the Highflyer 
line of steamboats. 

From their front door one morning they saw a 
multitude of men seated upon the ground, plying 
leaden hammers in breaking stones with which 
to macadamize the new street. This suggested 
something to Edgar. He went at once to the 
contractor who had charge of the work and 
asked : 

“ What do you pay men for breaking up these 
stones ? ” 

The man answered that he paid by the perch of 
stone broken, telling him the price. 

“ How much stone can a man or a lively boy 
break in a day? ” 

The contractor told him — giving maximum and 
minimum figures. Thereupon Edgar did a little 
“ sum” in his head, and learned that the average 
earning must be about a dollar a day. 

“ Do you want any more hands?” was his next 
question. 

“Yes — as many as I can get. But if you’re 
thinking of taking a job, my boy, let me tell you 


ROOM AT THE BOTTOM 


29 

it’s mighty back-breaking work, and it will be hard 
on the sort of clothes you wear.” 

Ed made no response to this warning. He 
eagerly demanded instead : 

“ Well, if three of us come here any morning 
soon, can we count on getting work? ” 

“ Yes, three or thirty or three hundred of you.” 

“ For how long? ” 

“ As long as you choose to stick at it. Most 
of them don’t stick long, and my contracts will 
keep the thing going for two or three years to 
come.” 

“ Thank you,” answered the boy. “ I don’t 
know whether we’ll want the job or not. If we 
do we’ll come. Good-morning.” 

Hurrying back to the house he called his broth- 
ers to the window and directed their attention to 
what was going on. 

‘‘There,” he said, “there’s work for us if we 
can’t get better. We can earn a dollar a day — or 
more — each of us, by doing that. That’s three 
dollars a day for the three of us. That’s eighteen 
dollars a week. I don’t say we can’t do better, 
but there’s something we can do if worst comes to 
worst. It’s an anchor to windward. It makes it 
certain that Jeannette shall be well provided for in 
any case.” 


3 ° 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“What led you to think of that, Ed?” asked 
Allan. 

“ I don’t know. Only we are all thinking about 
what we are going to do.” 

“Well, I’m glad you thought of it anyhow,” 
said Theodore. “It is a comfort to have some- 
thing absolutely certain in view. But you have 
played hob with the old adage, Ed.” 

“ How do you mean ? What adage ? ” 

“Why, the saying that 'there’s always room at 
the top.’ ” 

Ed thought a moment and then rejoined : 

“Adages are usually wrong, I suspect. Any- 
how, when we get settled I’m going to think up all 
the adages I ever heard and find out how far 
they’re right and how far wrong. There’s the 
saying that ‘ a rolling stone gathers no moss.’ I 
don’t see that a stone is the better for having moss 
on it. But there’s another thing. There may be 
plenty of room at the top, but if we’re at the bot- 
tom — and just now that’s where we are — the room 
at the top does us no good. It’s easier to go into 
the basement and do something there while look- 
ing for a ladder.” 

“You’re right, Ed,” said Theodore. “There is 
always work a-plenty for men who are able and 
willing to do it. It is often hard for one to find 


ROOM AT THE BOTTOM 


3i 


the exact kind of work that he likes, but when the 
problem is work or starve, if the man has courage 
and physical strength enough, there is always work 
for him that will ward off starvation.” 

The boy, who was much given to reflection, 
thought for a while ; then he said : 

“ That is likely to be the trouble in this country 
for a long time to come.” 

“ What is, Teddy?” asked the girl who had not 
before joined in the conversation, chiefly because 
she had not yet schooled herself to accept her 
father’s affliction as an evil that could not be rem- 
edied. Her mind was in the hospital, whither she 
went every day to sit by her father for as long a 
time as the nurses would permit. 

“ Why, in a country like ours the opportunities 
are so great that there is always difficulty in find- 
ing men enough willing to do the hard, unskilled 
work. The man who rolls freight on the St. 
Louis levee to-day, if he has ordinary intelligence, 
is apt to-morrow to get a place as foreman of a 
gang, and presently, if he can read, write, and 
cipher, he graduates into a shipping clerk or 
something of that kind. The result is there are 
never enough men to do the drudgery. There is 
always room at the bottom. Just now a great 
many Irish laborers are coming to America to dig 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


32 

and handle stone and build railroads and streets 
and levees. But those of them who can read and 
write are looking for better places for themselves, 
and they will get them. Then somebody else 
must be found to do the hardest work.” 

“ But isn’t the same thing true in other coun- 
tries?” asked Al. 

“No. In countries that are densely populated 
there is always a large class of men at the bottom, 
and as every place above them is filled to over- 
flowing, they simply have to remain at the bottom. 
With us there are great opportunities for every 
man. With them there are no opportunities at 
all. The laboring man, in this country, if he 
chooses to save his wages, soon becomes a capital- 
ist in a small way, and goes into some business for 
himself. In the crowded countries of the world 
he cannot possibly do anything of the kind.” 

“ But why not? ” 

“Simply because there are so many laboring 
men that wages are kept at the starvation point. 
Every cent a man earns he must spend at once 
in order to feed himself, and often he can’t do 
even that except in a meager, half-starved way. 
There are thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands 
of hard-working men in Europe who never taste a 
piece of meat from year’s end to year’s end. How 


ROOM AT THE BOTTOM 


33 

can they save anything or better themselves in any 
other way? ” 

“ But why can’t they go to farming? ” 

“ Where? Every acre, yes, every square inch 
of ground is already owned, and worse still, the 
land is everywhere required to support two sets of 
people — the great land-owner in luxury, and the 
small farmer or peasant on the land-owner’s leav- 
ings. 

“ But I’ve got something to do that is more im- 
portant than talking. So good-morning, all of 
you. Only never forget to thank God that we 
were born Americans. Edgar, I wish you’d stay 
here to-day, as several people are coming to look 
at the furniture. Alf, if you will, I wish you’d go 
down to the lumber-yards and get their lowest 
figures on every kind of plain lumber they have. 
I think we’ll have some plans to talk over to-night 
with an eye to business.” 

The boys greatly wanted to know what it was 
that their older brother was planning, but they 
did not detain him with questions. 

3 


CHAPTER IV 


THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 

It was ten o’clock that night when Theodore re- 
turned to the house. He was tired, but his step 
was elastic and his spirits were buoyant. He was 
full of hope and confidence, and so physical weari- 
ness counted for little with him. 

A1 was already in bed; so was Jeannette. 
Edgar had waited up only for his brother’s return. 

“ Rout yourselves out, all of you,” cried Theo- 
dore in a tone that told more than words could 
have done of his confidence and enthusiasm. 
“ Rout yourselves out, throw something around 
you and come here quick. We have things to 
talk over.” 

It did not take long to assemble the family 
conclave. Jeannette was wrapped in a great red 
and blue Belagio blanket, Ed was fully dressed of 
course, and A1 had slipped his trousers and shoes 
on. 

“ First of all,” began Theodore, “ we’re very 
much obliged to your paving contractor, Ed, but 
we won’t take a stone-breaking job just yet.” 

34 


THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 


35 


“ What have you in mind, Ted? ” asked Edgar, 
whose interrogation mark was always in his 
mouth. 

“Wait!” replied Theodore. “Judging by of- 
fers made to-day, Ed, how much do you think the 
furniture is likely to bring?” 

“ I hardly know ” 

“ Figure it up ! ” eagerly demanded the older 
brother. “ Keep on the safe side, remembering 
that this is a forced sale, and second-hand things 
are likely to go for very small prices.” 

Edgar went to the mantel-piece and took thence 
a minute schedule which he had made that day 
of everything in the house, “ from the piano to the 
potato-masher” he said. After a little figuring 
work he was ready to report. 

“ I think we shall get from two to three thou- 
sand dollars,” he said, “ from the sale of the things. 
But there are bills to be paid — a good many more 
than I had supposed. If we clear up two thou- 
sand dollars we shall do well. I should reckon for 
safety upon not more than twelve hundred dollars 
or possibly fifteen hundred.” 

“ Very good,” said Theodore. “ That’s about 
what I am counting upon. It isn’t enough to 
secure the best results, but it will answer. That 
is to be our capital. We mustn’t spend a dollar 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


36 

of it that we can help, except to make a profit on 
the outlay. We’ll need all the money we can get 
together as our working capital. I wish we could 
manage to make it a little larger, for we shall need 
more.” 

At that moment Jeannette vanished through 
the door, and her bare feet were heard pattering 
upon the stairs. Within half a minute she re- 
turned, and throwing a little book upon the table, 
said: 

“ Add that, Theodore.” 

Jeannette was fifteen years old. The mother 
had died when she was thirteen years of age, and 
she being a thoroughly domestic little body and a 
devotedly loving one, had become her father’s 
housekeeper from that hour forth. 

“Ever since I’ve been housekeeper,” she now 
explained, “ I’ve had a salary from papa. He has 
put it in the bank at interest for me, and there’s 
the account.” 

Theodore opened the book. Jeannette had that 
day gone to the bank and had the interest “ writ- 
. ten up.” The total amount was five hundred and 
sixty dollars. 

“ But, Jeannette, dear, we boys aren’t going to 
take your money,” said Theodore. 

“Oh, you aren’t? Then notone cent of your 



“ADD THAT, THEODORE.” 


Page 36 














* 



































' 


. 



THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 


37 


money will Jeannette take. I’ll go out to nurse 
or wash dishes, and you boys shan’t do a thing for 
me, if you don’t make me a full partner in what- 
ever it is you’re going to do. By the way, what is 
it, Teddy?” 

Theodore wanted to say something loving to his 
sister. So did the other boys, but none of them 
dared. Neither did Jeannette dare let them, for 
in these days the tears lay very near the lids of 
her eyes. That is why she ended her little speech 
with the question : “ What is it you’re going to do, 
Teddy?” 

“We’re going to re-establish the Highflyer line. 
As a beginning we’re going up the Illinois River,” 
he answered, “ and then we’re going to float down 
it to the Mississippi, and then perhaps we shall go 
down the Mississippi to New Orleans.” 

“ That’s a direct statement,” said Ed. “ But it 
doesn’t tell us anything. Why can’t you enlarge 
upon it.” 

“ I will. I’ve been looking into things and con- 
sulting our father’s friend, Mr. Chouteau, who is a 
merchant, you know. He tells me that the Illinois 
River country is becoming quite populous, but 
there are very few towns there. Almost all the 
people are farmers. Now none of the new rail- 
roads have been built into that region yet, and the 


38 RUNNING THE RIVER 

only communication those people have with the 
outside world is by the river. But the river is 
difficult of navigation even in summer time, while 
in the winter it is closed with ice. Never mind 
the details. The result is that the farmers along 
the river have a hard time to buy what they need, 
and a still harder time to market what they have 
to sell. So we are going to their relief. We are 
going to build a store-boat here, or rather make all 
the pieces of a store-boat here, and take them by 
one of Mr. Chouteau’s steamboats to Peoria. 
We’re going to take a supply of goods along, con- 
sisting of the things those people want most to 
buy. We’ll put our store-boat together at Peoria, 
and then drop down the river, stopping at all of 
the little way landings and trading with the farmer 
people. When they haven’t money we’ll take their 
produce in payment and we’ll sell it for cash in St. 
Louis. Mr. Chouteau assures me that we can do 
a large business, and can sell our goods for nearly 
or quite twice what they cost us. Indeed he is so 
sure of that that he offered to furnish us with the 
boat and the stock of goods at his own expense, 
and to take one-half our net profits for his pay. 
But I preferred that we should do the thing our- 
selves. We have capital enough, and there’s no 
need to share the profits.” 


THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 


39 


“ But Teddy,” broke in Edgar with his interro- 
gation mark, “ why do those people pay so much 
for goods? Why don’t they go to their towns 
along the river and buy cheaper? ” 

“ I’ve looked into all that,” responded the older 
boy, “ and the explanation is simple. There are 
very few towns and very small ones in that coun- 
try. Often the nearest one is ten or twenty or 
even twenty-five miles distant from the farmer’s 
home. That’s one trouble. Another is that the 
merchants in such little towns as these are sell 
their goods at extortionate prices — sometimes 
twice or three times their cost. They sell very 
little and must make enormous profits on the little 
they sell in order to live. Then again there is no 
competition. There are never two towns near 
enough to the farmer for him to choose in which 
he will do his buying. So when we tie up our 
store-boat at a landing we shall offer the farmers 
and their wives and daughters the goods they want 
at lower prices than they could buy them for in 
towns twenty miles or so away. Then, again, Mr. 
Chouteau’s stern-wheel steamboat will make several 
trips up and down the river during the summer, 
and so when the farmer people have butter or eggs 
or anything else to sell we can buy their products 
for our goods, paying them more at their own 


40 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


doors, as it were, than they could get in the far- 
away towns. We’ll carry the less perishable 
things we buy on our own boat. The more per- 
ishable kinds we’ll ship by Mr. Chouteau’s steam- 
boat. As we shall pay for these things in goods at 
rates that will pay us a big profit, and as we shall 
sell them in St. Louis for quite twice what they 



STERN-WHEEL STEAMBOAT 

cost us, our traffic ought to pay us well. We shall 
have only ourselves to blame if it doesn’t.” 

“ How long will it take us to make the trip?” 
asked Ed. 

“As long as we choose to make it. We’ll stop 
at each landing as long as there is trade there, and 
we’ll move on down the river when the trade falls 
off. We must get out of the river before ice forms 
of course. Then perhaps we may decide to go on 
down the Mississippi during the winter. That’s a 
matter that we needn’t consider as yet. Just now 



THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 


4i 


we’ve got to get to work. Did you get figures on 
lumber, A1 ? ” 

Allan promptly produced his memoranda, and 
from them Theodore quickly calculated the cost of 
constructing the store-boat, so far at least as the 
work of construction was to be done at St. Louis. 
The result seemed to satisfy him. 

“We must have her ready to ship one week 
from to-day,” he said. “ The steamboat will leave 
then. Now the only other thing to be settled to- 
night is, what shall we do with Jeannette ? Where 
shall we leave her during our long absence?” 

“ Oh, that’s already settled,” said the girl, rising 
and kissing each of her brothers in turn. “I’m 
going with you to keep house for you on the store- 
boat. “ I’m to be a partner, you know.” 

This suggestion was so unexpected that at first 
it seemed impracticable to the boys, but to their 
protestations Jeannette responded with a simple 
question : 

“ Why not?” 

To that question there was no answer. The 
more the boys thought about the matter the more 
clearly they saw that Jeannette’s plan was alto- 
gether practicable and altogether best. 

“ It will keep us civilized at any rate,” said 
Allan. 


42 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“Yes, and we shan’t have to worry over what 
may be happening to Jeannette all the time or how 
lonely she may be.” 

So the matter was settled, and a week later the 
party set out on board a little stern-wheel steam- 
boat, which carried their stock of goods and the 
lumber which was already fashioned, but which 
they must put together near Peoria, making of it 
a floating country store. 


CHAPTER V 


HARD AGROUND 

It is only twenty miles from St. Louis to the 
mouth of the Missouri River, yet in that brief 
space the little stern-wheel steamboat on which the 
Farraday boys traveled was passed in midstream 
by three larger boats bound up the Missouri. 

“ That shows something of what is coming,” said 
Theodore. “ Every one of those boats is loaded to 
the water’s edge and crowded with passengers, all 
going up the Missouri, and there are scores of 
other boats making the same journey. How fast 
all that region is filling up with people and what 
vast wealth in food-stuffs that great fertile country 
is destined to produce, it is difficult to imagine — 
enough to feed the world. And the same thing is 
true of the country up the Mississippi and up the 
Illinois. All these regions are the richest on earth 
in soil and climate, and they only need men to 
build them up into an empire.” 

“Yes,” answered Allan, the student of the 
party, “I’ve been reading something about that. 
In the Illinois River country corn grows so lux- 


44 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


uriantly that seventy-five bushels to the acre is an 
ordinary crop. Up the Missouri corn is just as 
good, and the still unsettled region west of the 
Missouri promises to be equally fruitful, in parts at 
least. Then there are Iowa and Wisconsin, new 
States, now rapidly filling up, which seem to pro- 
duce wheat as wonderfully as Illinois and Missouri 
produce corn. But they still lack men. Less than 
one acre in a hundred has ever been plowed.” 

“ I suppose that is true,” said Theodore. “ And 
the case is not much better in the Illinois River 
country to which we are going. That is an old 
country in one way. Marquette traversed it more 
than a hundred and seventy-five years ago, and 
Hennepin and La Salle a little later. The French 
had trading-posts and settlements there long be- 
fore the English colonies on the Atlantic coast 
grew large enough and strong enough to think of 
quarreling with England. The very first explorers 
saw that it was a singularly rich country where, 
as there were no forests to be cut down and no 
mountains, the farmer had nothing to do but 
plow and hoe the soil in order to get great 
crops. Yet even now it is very thinly populated 
and only one acre in many has ever been plowed ; 
though people are pouring in there at a rapid rate 
now.” 


HARD AGROUND 


45 


“But, Theodore/’ asked Jeannette, “why have 
not people come to this wonderfully rich country 
sooner ? 99 

“ Many have,” he answered meditatively, “ but 
the country is so vast that even a great many peo- 
ple settling in it do not make it a thickly settled 
region. And there are other reasons. There are 
still good opportunities for men in the Eastern 
States, and most of the people born there have 
stayed there. It has been a costly and toilsome 
thing to come to the West, and as there was plenty 
of rich land in Ohio and Indiana and in the new 
States south of the Ohio, the people who were 
moved by one circumstance or another to under- 
take the toilsome journey over the mountains 
naturally stopped as soon as they got to a country 
that promised well for them.” 

“ Another thing,” Said Allan. “ People moving 
west usually had friends who had emigrated ear- 
lier, and they naturally went to the same parts of 
the country that their friends had settled in.” 

“ But why did the country along the rivers settle 
up so much more rapidly than the rest?” asked 
Jeannette. 

“ Why, simply,” answered Theodore, “ because 
the river offered the easiest routes of travel when 
there were no railroads, no turnpikes, no bridges 


46 RUNNING THE RIVER 

across the streams, and even no roads of any kind 
over long stretches.” 

“ I don’t think that was the chief reason, Teddy,” 
said Allan. 

“ What was it then ? ” 

“Why, simply that the man who grows any- 
thing wants to sell it and to buy other things with 
the proceeds.” 

“ But I don’t see ” 

“ Wait a minute and you will. When a man 
settled on the Ohio River, for example, he could 
float his corn, wheat, apples, onions, or whatever 
else he raised, to New Orleans or the other cities 
along the river and sell them there. In return he 
could buy things from the cities and have them 
brought to him at very small cost. The man 
who opened a farm forty or fifty miles away from 
the river simply could not get his produce to 
market or buy anything with the money it might 
sell for. All the cities and towns were built on 
the rivers at first, and farmers settled on or near 
the rivers so that they might sell their produce 
in the towns and buy the goods they wanted 
there.” 

“True,” said Theodore; “I hadn’t thought 
that out. But it accounts for something else.” 

“ What’s that?” 


HARD AGROUND 


47 

“ Why it accounts for the rapid settlement of the 
interior which is now going on.” 

“ How?” 

“ Why, now that railroads are being built, farm- 
ers settling in the interior can send their produce 
to market. Towns are springing up all along the 
railroads. Their people must be fed, and there are 
merchants there with stocks of goods for sale. In 
short, I suppose that all human life is chiefly a 
matter of convenience. Every man lives where 
he can live best with the least effort.” 

“Well,” said Edgar, “I suppose there’s some- 
thing in all that. But you overlook the fact that 
some men have energy to waste. The pioneer 
people and the explorers, and the hunters and 
trappers were not all driven by poverty into their 
careers. George Rogers Clark, who conquered 
the Illinois country from the English during the 
Revolution, might have stayed at home in Vir- 
ginia, so far as the means of living were con. 
cerned, or he might have stayed in Kentucky, and 
in either case have lived a much easier life than 
he did when marching through water armpit deep 
to drive the British out of Illinois and Indiana. 
George Washington was rich and had no need to 
pass his young manhood in the wilderness and 
most of his life in hardship as he did.” 


4 8 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ All that is true. Poverty is not the only spur 
to human endeavor, and not all men who do things 
do them for the sake of bettering themselves. 
But after all those are the most active motives.” 

It was early morning of the next day when the 
little steamboat turned into the mouth of the Illi- 
nois River, twenty miles above the mouth of the 
Missouri. She at once began to make better 
speed, as the boys discovered by watching the low 
banks slipping by. 

“She seems to have got a new energy from 
some source,” said Ed., as he observed the im- 
provement in speed. 

“ No, she hasn’t,” answered Allan, who was the 
most “bookish” boy in the party and who had 
constituted himself the geographer of the expedi- 
tion. “ It’s only that she’s in the Illinois River 
and hasn’t any current worth mentioning to con- 
tend with.” 

“ Isn’t there any current in the Illinois River? ” 
asked Jeannette rather anxiously. 

“ Not much at any time,” answered Allan, “ and 
nearly none at all when the Mississippi is as high 
as it is at present. In fact I suspect that just now 
what current there is in this lower end of the river 
runs up stream, being backwater from the Missis- 
sippi.” 


HARD AGROUND 


49 


“ But I should think,” said Jeannette, “that the 
current of the Illinois would overcome the back- 
water within less than twenty miles.” 

“ So it would,” answered Allan, coming out of 
his state-room with a map and half a dozen books 
in his hands, “if the Illinois River had any cur- 
rent to speak of; but it hasn’t. You see, this 
so-called river is nothing more than a great slough. 
It runs through an almost perfectly level country, 
with no mountains and no hills of any consequence 
on either side. It is a mere drainage ditch for one 
of the flattest countries in the world. Its head- 
waters are so nearly on a level with Lake Michi- 
gan that a canal four feet deep has been dug 
from the little city of Chicago * to connect it with 
the lake, and the water sometimes runs this way 
from the lake into the river, and sometimes the 
other way. Wait a minute. Let me get the exact 
figures.” With that Allan consulted one of his 
books, after which he continued : 

“ Chicago lies only 583 feet above the sea-level. 
St. Louis lies 480 feet, or 103 feet lower than Chi- 
cago. The Illinois River doesn’t cover the whole 
of the distance between, but with its windings it 

* In 1850 Chicago had a total population of less than 30,000. So 
a St. Louis boy of that time naturally thought and spoke of it as 
“ a little city.” 

4 


5 ° 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


is five hundred miles long. Now a large part of 
the fall between the headwaters of the Illinois and 
St. Louis occurs in the Mississippi, between the 
mouth of the Illinois and our city, and another 
large part above La Salle. So the total fall of the 
Illinois, in its navigable part, is only about seven- 
tenths of an inch to the mile. Naturally, such a 
river hasn’t much of a current.” 

Just as Allan finished the explanation, the 
steamboat, which had been moving more and 
more slowly, came to a stop, and hurried orders 
were given for all the deck hands to go astern. 
The boys had been so intently studying Allan’s 
map and listening to his explanations that they 
had neglected to observe the river. Looking at 
it now, they saw that it was covered from side to 
side with a thick green scum. Going astern they 
found that this vegetable growth upon the stag- 
nant water had wrapped itself around the propel- 
ling wheel at the stern, until the blades of the 
wheel, or “ buckets” as they were called, no longer 
met any resistance in the water, and of course no 
longer propelled the boat. It was necessary to 
send the deck hands to the wheel to cut the 
slimy growth away. Wrapped as it was in this 
grasslike material, the wheel resembled a gi- 
gantic drum or barrel, which turned over in the 


HARD AGROUND 


5 * 

water to no purpose till the growth should be re- 
moved. 

A little inquiry among the officers revealed the 
fact that in certain parts of the Illinois River this 
green scum always appears in summer, and is a 
serious obstacle to navigation. 

“ It isn’t much of a river I should think,” said 
Ed. 

“ I don’t see how we’re ever going to float our 
store-boat down a stream that has no current,” 
said Jeannette, still speaking in a tone that implied 
anxiety. 

“ One at a time,” answered Allan, “ and your 
questions will go farther. I’ll answer Jean- 
nette’s first. The river has a current, though it is 
a slow one. We shall not want to float more than 
a few miles at a time, and we can put up with slow 
progress on journeys that at most are to cover 
only a few miles each. Then, again, we shall 
have a pair of big oars at the bow, and we’re 
rather muscular young fellows who know how to 
row. Still, again, you must remember that we’ve 
been speaking only of average fall. I suppose 
there isn’t anything in the world so deceptive as 
averages.” 

“ How do you mean, Al?” eagerly asked Ed- 
gar. 


S 2 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Well, for example, if you took the exact height 
of each person in St. Louis, big and little, black, 
white, and mixed, added up the figures and divided 
the result by eighty thousand, the number of peo- 
ple living there, I imagine you’d find the average 
height of them all to be only a very few feet. But 
it would be a mistake to suppose that the visitor 
to St. Louis would find the city inhabited by a 
race of dwarfs. 

I saw the other day a calculation showing that 
the average annual earnings of all the doctors in 
the United States was a good deal less than a 
hundred dollars apiece. But in order to get at 
that average the statistician had to include a great 
multitude of doctors who earn scarcely anything 
at all. Certainly his ‘ average ’ doesn’t represent 
what a capable doctor may fairly expect to earn 
from his practice.” 

“ But what has that to do with rivers and their 
currents?” asked Ed, the chronic questioner. 

“ Only that averages are as deceptive there as 
everywhere else. Between Cario and New Or- 
leans, the Mississippi has an average fall of only 
two and a half to four inches a mile, according to 
the stage of water. But in front of Memphis the 
fall is so great that the river rushes on at a speed 
of six or eight miles an hour, while from the 


HARD AGROUND 


53 


mouth of the Red River to the gulf the average 
fall is less than a quarter of an inch to the mile, 
and there is almost no current at all.” 

“ How do you happen to know all this, Allan?” 
asked Theodore. 

“ Why when we decided to run the river I saw 
the necessity of knowing all we could about it, 
so I got up such books and maps as I could, and 
I am studying them with all my might. But 
you’re interrupting. In many parts of the Illinois 
River we shall have current enough to float us 
easily and as fast as we need go. When we come 
to a part of the river where there is almost no cur- 
rent, why we shall have to row our boat, that’s all. 
Fortunately the river is deep almost everywhere, 
and with a boat drawing only ten or twelve 
inches, we shan’t have any trouble with shoals or 
sand bars, even at the lowest stages of the 
water.” 

There Allan was interrupted, for just as he 
pronounced his last words, the little steamboat 
suddenly changed its course, veering to the left; 
and in the next instant, with a crunching sound 
and a shock that nearly unseated the boys, it ran 
hard and fast upon a gravely shoal. 

In the midst of the excitement the boys saw one 
of the deck hands run forward and cut the lash- 


54 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


ings of an anchor that hung over the bow. This 
let the anchor drop into the shallow water of the 
river, but, as it was not attached to any line, and 
as the boat was already hard aground, and cer- 
tainly not in need of anchorage, the boys won- 
dered why the man had thus cast the anchor over- 
board. Somebody else wondered too, and not at 
all mildly. This was the second mate, a hulking, 
brutal fellow, who seeing the deck hand’s act, 
picked up a hand spike and knocked the poor fel- 
low down with it. He was about to strike the 
senseless man again when Theodore, Edgar, and 
Allan, who had quickly leaped from the cabin 
guards to the main deck, seized him and threw 
him violently to the deck. The mate, cursing 
frightfully, struggled to release himself, but the 
three stalwart boys were far more than a match 
for him. At one moment during the encounter, 
however, he succeeded in freeing his right arm 
and aiming a vicious blow at Theodore’s face. 
But Edgar with a cat-like quickness which charac- 
terized all his motions, delivered a blow first upon 
the fellow’s right ear, temporarily stunning him. 
In the next instant Edgar threw the hand spike 
across the man’s free arm and sat down upon it, 
thus pinioning it to the deck. 

By this time the captain and some of the deck 



THE MATE STRUGGLED TO RELEASE HIMSELF 


Page 54 






















* 














































- 

. 











HARD AGROUND 


55 

hands came upon the scene and Theodore ex- 
plained briefly. 

“ He was trying to kill that poor fellow merely 
for making a mistake. We prevented the murder, 
and that’s all there is to the story.” 

Mates on Western steamers in those days were 
often lawless, brutal, and even murderous in their 
dealings with the men under them. This one — 
known as Billy Paterson — was notorious on the 
river for his violence. He had once, indeed, been 
tried for murder upon the charge that he had 
killed a deck hand and thrown his body into the 
river, but the evidence was defective at some point 
and so the mate had escaped conviction. On this 
later occasion he would undoubtedly have killed 
his victim with his second blow but for the inter- 
ference of the boys. 

The captain fully approved of what they had 
done and ordered the mate into close confine- 
ment. He afterward explained to Theodore that 
he had done so in grave fear that if left at liberty 
the brutal fellow might have killed one or other of 
the boys in revenge. 


CHAPTER VI 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 

When the mate had been disposed of, the boys 
had time to find out what had happened. The 
steamboat had “ sheered ”or “run away with the 
pilot,” as the river phrase of that time ran. That 
is to say, something had happened which is not 
infrequent with light-draft steamboats in shoal 
waters. Under such circumstances a boat will 
sometimes refuse to obey the helm and suddenly 
run away in a direction quite other than that in- 
tended by the pilot. This is due to cross currents 
and under currents, and it is peculiarly likely to 
happen to a steamboat of low power and little 
speed, because such a boat’s power is not sufficient 
to overcome a rapid cross current, especially if it 
be an under current. 

In this case the steamboat was passing one of 
the great gravel-covered shoals of the river, about 
twenty miles above its mouth. There was water 
enough in the channel, but the channel was very 
narrow, and when the boat “ sheered ” she ran al- 
most instantly upon the great flat gravel bank, 
56 



A HAPPY THOUGHT 


57 


where the water was only three feet deep, while 
the steamboat was so heavily laden that she 
needed at least four feet of water to float her. 
She had plowed a great furrow in the gravel 
bed, and now lay nearly a foot deep in the surface 
of the bar. 

The boys learned by inquiry that the deck hand, 
whom they had saved, was a queer, half-witted fel- 
low, called Joe, singularly keen of intelligence in 
some things and at some times, but almost desti- 
tute of intelligence at other times, particularly at 
times of excitement. The sudden sheering and 
grounding of the boat had simply startled the 
poor fellow out of his small wits, and “in ill- 
directed zeal,” as Allan called it, he had cut the 
unattached anchor loose and let it drop into the 
river. 

There was not much time, however, for parley 
over these things. The boat was hopelessly 
aground, and as no rise in the river was expected 
at that season, the one problem of universal con- 
cern on board was" how the craft should be 
floated. 

The captain ordered the spars set. These are 
great timbers with pointed iron shoes. By set- 
ting them at an angle in the bar and connecting 
ropes from their tops to big steam capstans, it is 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


58 

sometimes possible to shove a grounded boat 
stern first off a bar and into deeper water. 

This time, however, the boat was far too badly 
grounded for that, and after an hour’s hard work, 
involving the breaking of some great cables and 
the serious wounding of two of the crew, the boat’s 
officers were in despair. 

Very naturally the Faraday boys had interested 
themselves during all this time, not only to ob- 
serve what was done, but also to study the situ- 
ation on their own account. If this steamboat 
could not be got off that gravel bank very soon, 
their enterprise must be an absolute failure and 
they must lose not only the profit they had hoped 
to earn, but also pretty nearly the whole of their 
little capital. For unless they could market their 
goods in the way originally planned they must sell 
them for next to nothing. 

“ Fortunately they are insured,” said Ed, as the 
boys were discussing the situation. 

“ Against fire, yes, and against loss by sinking; 
but not against the steamboat’s getting out of the 
river and lying on a gravel shoal for a whole sum- 
mer, as this one is likely to do if she doesn’t get 
off within twenty-four hours.” It was Theodore 
who spoke, and his look was a very anxious one as 
he added : 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 


59 


“ The rise in the Mississippi is about over. The 
captain says there will be no more backwater to 
raise the Illinois. And as to this river itself, it 
will go lower and lower during the summer. This 
is the first of July you know. The simple fact is 
that we’re utterly ruined if the boat can’t be got 
off this bar to-day or to-morrow at latest. She lies 
a foot deep in gravel, and all the backing she can 
do, with all the work of the spars, hasn’t budged 
her an inch.” 

At that moment the crew began throwing cargo 
overboard, under the captain’s orders, in the hope 
that in that way the boat might be sufficiently 
lightened to permit of her release. In this work 
the boys willingly helped, but presently they 
found it impeded by the fact that the decks were 
obstructed by many hundreds of empty whisky 
barrels, which the boat was carrying to a distillery, 
recently established at Peoria. Then a thought 
occurred to Edgar, who not only asked questions 
of people, but was always questioning circum- 
stances and conditions as well. As a result of 
that habit of mind he was apt to be full of sugges- 
tions in all emergencies. Turning to the captain, 
who happened at that moment to be near, he 
said: 

“ I think I see a way of floating her.” 


6o 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Out with it, boy,” answered the bluff old man 
of the river. 

“ Why, let’s throw these empty whisky barrels 
overboard and push them in under the guards. 
They’re air-tight and will float with seven-eighths 
of their bulk above water. If we push a few hun- 
dred of them well under the guards, they’ll lift the 
boat by a foot or more.” 

It must be explained that the boat, like all 
Western steamboats, was built with her main deck 
extending outward for five or six feet beyond her 
hull. This extension, or outrigger, was called 
“the guards,” and when a steamboat was fully 
loaded as this one was, these guards of this main 
deck were only a few inches above the water. 

The captain went to the side of the boat and 
looked over. Then he jumped into the water and 
studied the situation from that point of view. 
Then he called out for all the deck hands to jump 
into the water, which was about three feet deep, 
and as they did so he called to Edgar : 

“ Now you young rascal, you’ve struck the right 
thing. Get to work, all of you, and heave them 
there barrels overboard.” 

The captain’s English may have been a trifle 
faulty, but his appreciation of Edgar’s plan was 
complete, and within a minute, standing in the 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 61 

water up to his waist, he was directing the men 
how to force an empty, air-tight barrel under water 
so as to let it come up again under the steamboat’s 
guards. Meantime the few other passengers on 
board the boat had joined the Farraday boys in 
the work of passing the barrels overboard as fast 
as they could be put in place. 

It was slow work to get them under the guards, 
but it was accomplished, and little by little the 
boat was lifted out of her gravel bed. At last the 
captain climbed aboard and went to his post on 
the hurricane deck. 

He quickly gave his orders. The wheel was 
set going backward. For a time there was no re- 
sult and Ed. feared that his plan had been a fail- 
ure. But with every revolution the great wheel 
at the boat’s stern was driving a strong current of 
water under her nearly flat bottom, thus washing 
out gravel and increasing the depth by an inch or 
two. Presently there was a loosening of the bar’s 
hold, and under the strong backward impulse of 
the wheel the boat began sliding off the shoal 
into deeper water. As she backed out of her posi- 
tion the empty barrels, one by one, slid out from 
under the guards and floated on the surface of 
the stream. But at any rate the boat was 
afloat, and it did not take much time for her 


62 RUNNING THE RIVER 

crew to collect the barrels and get them on board 
again. 

It was ten o’clock at night when the freed 
steamer began pushing her way up stream again. 
Supper had been served in the cabin at the usual 
time, and most of the passengers had sat down to 
it, leaving the boat’s perplexities to get themselves 
attended to as best they might. But the Faraday 
boys had not partaken of the meal, and no sooner 
was the boat free again than the captain gave 
orders to the steward to serve a second supper, 
“ for just five people,” he said. Then he put his 
arm affectionately around little Jeannette, saying: 

“ I want you, young lady, to go and find them 
there brothers of yourn, and bring ’em to me to 
git their punishment.” 

When the captain and the Faradays were seated 
at table the captain stared hard at Edgar for half 
a minute. Then he said : 

“Young man, you’ve got a head on your 
shoulders. Do you know it?” 

Edgar stammered a little, answering: 

“Oh, I don’t know. Anybody might have 
thought of that.” 

“Yes, mebbe so, but the trouble with ‘Any- 
body ’ was that he didn’t think of it. He gene- 
rally doesn’t. It’s easy to think of a thing after- 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 63 

ward. You thought of it before. That’s why I 
say you’ve got a head on you. You’ll do. You’ll 
succeed. And the best of it is you’re Captain 
Tom Faraday’s boy. That accounts for it. I’ve 
shipped with him many’s the day, and I’ve yet to 
see a man that’s got more judgment in a scrape 
than he’s got. It’s in the blood I reckon. Sort o’ 
runs in the family.” 

The boys expressed their pleasure at hearing 
these praises of their father, but seeing their em- 
barrassment the captain relieved it by saying: 

“ I reckon them there whisky barrels won’t 
never be put to a better use than they was to-day. 
There’s a lot of money in makin’ whisky, but 
bear in mind that every cent of it comes out of the 
earnin’s of the people that drink it. I ain’t got no 
use for the stuff at all. First and last I’ve run the 
river for nigh onto twenty year — from way back 
in them times when a steamboat was a curiosity 
in many parts of the river, and I never yet saw 
any man the better for drinkin’ whisky.” 

“Why, captain,” asked Edgar, “have they been 
running steamboats on this river since 1830? ” 

“Sure. Why, way back in 1820, when I was a 
little chap, I come up the river from New Orleans 
to St. Louis on a steamboat, and steamboats was 
common enough then.” 


6 4 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Oh, I thought you meant you’d been running 
this river — the Illinois — all that time.” 

“ Now look here, youngster. You’re the son of 
a steamboat man. You ought to know that to 
the steamboat man west of the Alleghanies there 
is only one river in the world. That’s the Missis- 
sippi. All the rest is parts of it. I’ve steam- 
boated from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and from 
New Orleans to the falls of St. Anthony, and from 
St. Louis to the headwaters of the Missouri, way 
up in the Rocky Mountains. I’ve steamboated 
up the Yellowstone, and even up the Platte River 
once when there was so little water that we had to 
wait for a dew or send a man ahead with a sprin- 
kler to keep the dust down. I’ve steamboated up 
the Red River and the Arkansas and the Wachita, 
and the Cumberland and the Tennessee and the 
Kentucky, and the Wabash, but I ain’t never had 
to cross a carry to git from one part of the river to 
another. It’s all one river, I tell you, but it spran- 
gles out like, so as to git to all the different places 
a steamboat wants to git to.” 

The captain paused for a brief while and then 
resumed : 

“ The Illinois is only a part of the river, of 
course, and in some ways it’s a mighty mean part. 
It’s got more ‘ fevernager ’ (the captain meant 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 


6 5 


fever and ague) to the square inch than any other 
part of the river I ever saw, not exceptin’ Bayou 
Sara down South there. The only thing that 
keeps healthy on this river is corn, and that always 
thrives on ‘ fevernager.’ You can go out into a 
cornfield any night and hear the stalks shakin’ 
till their blades rattle, and the next mornin’ you’ll 
see that corn just a laughin’ and chucklin’ over 
how much it’s growed during the night.” 

The captain’s description was picturesque and 
perhaps exaggerated ; but it was true enough in 
its way. The country along the Illinois was at 


that time malarious in an extreme 
degree. The green scum on the 
river consisted of decaying vege- 
table matter which gave off poi- 
sonous gases in great abundance. 
On land, if one went back far 
enough into the prairie grass, it 
was possible to be healthy; but 
that lasted only until the soil was 
plowed up. As soon as plowing 
began the miasms arose from the 
rotting roots of the prairie grass 
that had grown there for thou- 
sands of years, and every breath 
and every drink of water was poi- 
5 





■ K * 

CORN STALK 


66 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


sonoiis, until little by little the strong sunshine 
and the action of the air upon the upturned soil 
burned out the poisonous germs. 

In our own time the Illinois River country is as 
healthful as any part of the Union, and it is thick- 
ly populated with as hardy a race of men and 
women as any that exist on earth. But in the 
middle of the last century the men and women 
who ventured to settle there did so at the risk of 
their lives and with the absolute certainty that 
they must suffer almost continually with bone- 
racking fevers and nerve-destroying agues. It is to 
the lasting credit of those men and women that they 
braved such dangers and conquered to civilization 
one of the fairest and most fruitful regions of earth. 

“ Now, young lady,” the captain resumed, ad- 
dressing Jeannette; “it’s high time for you to 
turn in and get your beauty sleep. Run away 
quick and let me finish what I’ve got to say to 
these boys.” 

When Jeannette was gone the bluff old captain 
rose from his chair, and facing the boys said : 

“ I don’t know whether you’re goin’ to make this 
trip pay or not. But one thing’s certain. When 
you fellers go ashore they ain’t agoin’ to be any 
charge against you for your freight or your pas- 
sage.” 


A HAPPY THOUGHT 


67 


“ But captain ! ” broke in Theodore. 

“ There, now, don’t answer back, especially to a 
steamboat captain. Just go to your berths and 
remember that this thing’s settled.” 

There was nothing to be said or done, but the 
boys did not sleep much that night. They sat out 
on the deck and talked instead, for this was 
great good fortune to them. All their goods were 
on board this steamboat, and so were the timbers 
out of which their store-boat was to be con- 
structed. For carrying this freight and for their 
own passage money they had expected to pay out 
nearly the last dollar of their remaining money. 

“ I suppose we can’t help this thing,” said Theo- 
dore at last. “ The captain will have his way. 
And I suppose in a way we’ve earned it, or rather 
Ed has ; for but for his suggestion the boat sim- 
ply could not have got off that bar without throw- 
ing every pound of her cargo overboard. She 
must have stayed there all summer.” 

“ That’s exactly the fact,” said the captain, com- 
ing out of the darkness; “and in all my life I never 
knowed a steamboat to make any money for her 
owners by lying still on a bar. You’ve earned all 
you’re a gittin’ twicet over. I hope you won’t git 
no ‘ fevernager ’ thrown in.” 



CHAPTER VII 

“ that’s all” 

It was on the 4th of July when the little party 
landed a few miles below Peoria. The point 
chosen was unbroken prairie, with no houses or 
farms within view, and as the steamboat, after dis- 
charging their goods, passed out of sight around a 
bend of the river, leaving them alone upon the 
bank, they were conscious of a great loneliness. 
They had only themselves to depend upon now. 
They were embarking upon an adventure which 
might turn out well or ill, and upon the success or 
failure of which they felt that their whole future 
lives might depend. 

It was Jeannette whose spirits showed least de- 
pression. 

“ It’s the 4th of July, boys,” she cheerily called 
out, “and we’ve declared our independence.” 

The thought seemed to cheer them all. 

“Yes, we’re so completely independent,” an- 
swered Theodore, “ that we haven’t even a shelter 
over our heads. It is four o’clock in the after- 
noon, and before night we must get things under 
68 


“THAT’S ALL” 69 

some sort of cover, so we must get to work at 
once.” 

The timbers and planks out of which the store- 
boat was to be built lay on the shore only a few 
feet from the water. The goods constituting 
their stock in trade had been packed closely in a 
pile just on top of the bank. They had a tarpau- 
lin with which they covered this pile, so arranging 
one end of it as to make a little tent-like space for 
Jeannette to sleep under. 

“But where will you boys sleep?” asked the 
girl anxiously as she lighted a little fire of dry 
sticks and prepared to cook supper for the party. 

“ Under the stars,” Theodore answered. 

“ But how about the captain’s 4 fevernager ’? ” 

“ Well, I selected this place with special refer- 
ence to that,” answered Theodore. “It is un- 
broken prairie all around here. There is no 
plowed land to give off malaria. Besides it is 
only for a night or two. You see every stick of 
the timber we are going to make the boat out of is 
cut to its exact size and shape and everything is 
marked and numbered. We shall have the boat 
far enough advanced by Saturday night to let us 
move into it.” 

A little later the boys completed their prepara- 
tions for the night by bringing a good supply of 


70 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


drift-wood from along the shores to the spot where 
Jeannette now had their supper ready. 

After supper there was still an hour or so of 
daylight and the boys employed it in getting out 
and setting in place the heavier timbers of the 
boat. These consisted of two gunwales three 
inches thick and a number of cross timbers. The 
gunwales, or “ gunnels,” as they were called, were 
heaviest of all, and the three boys were having 
some difficulty in managing them when suddenly 
help came to them quite unexpectedly. It came 
in the shape of the half-witted deck hand whom 
they had saved a few days before from the fury of 
the brutal steamboat mate. 

He came out of the tall prairie grass on the 
bank above and approached the party as confi- 
dently as if he had been one of them. They had 
supposed him to be on the steamboat still, and she 
was by this time many miles farther up the river. 
Indeed, at the very moment of their going ashore 
he had come to them to say good-by, and he had 
stood on the deck waving his hat to them as the 
boat pushed out into the stream. 

His appearance at the little bivouac, therefore, 
filled the boys with astonishment, and they were 
disposed to suspend work in order to question 
him. But he answered in monosyllables when he 


“THAT’S ALL” 71 

answered at all. Oftener he did not answer at all. 
Instead of talking, he set to work on the task the 
party had in hand. He was hatless and bare- 
footed, and his clothing was wet, but he seemed 
happier than he had been at any time on the 
steamboat. 

His strength was surprising, and as he handled 
the “ gunnel ” timbers the boys quickly discovered 
that he had skill as well as strength. 

They had begun work wrong it appeared. In- 
deed, beginning as they had done they could not 
have put a water-tight bottom on their boat, or in 
fact any bottom at all. Their new assistant quick- 
ly corrected this by turning the gunwales upside 
down. 

“ Must build bottom first,” was all he said in ex- 
planation, but it was sufficient. 

“ Of course,” answered Theodore, catching the 
idea, “otherwise we couldn’t build the bottom 
at all. What blockheads we are, fellows! But 
where did you learn to do this, Joe?” addressing 
the man by the only name he had heard. 

“Ship-carpenter,” answered the man, and his 
work in fastening the cross timbers into place 
soon convinced the party that he did indeed know 
the ship-carpenter’s trade. Naturally they let him 
direct the work, all of them working with him, and 


72 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


before nightfall compelled them to suspend their 
operations they had the pleasure of seeing the 
skeleton of the floating part of their store-boat 
lying upside down on the shore at the water’s 
edge. 

The boat was to be nothing more than a large 
scow, forty-five feet long, with a deck-house on top, 
fitted up as a country store. The deck-house was 
to be forty-one feet long, leaving a four-foot plat- 
form at the bow, over which to get freight in and 
out. Of course the scow part must be built first 
bottom upward, turned over, and in some way got 
into the water before the building of the deck- 
house could be begun. As the boys walked 
around the framework, inspecting it, Edgar said : 

“ That thing’s going to be very heavy when we 
get the planking on.” 

“ Oh, but it will float and carry cargo,” answered 
Allan. “ We’ll calk and pitch it, you know.” 

“Yes, I know. It won’t sink, particularly while 
it lies upside down on dry land. Its lucky that we 
have Joe.” 

“ That is certainly so,” said Theodore, beginning 
to understand Edgar’s thought. 

“ But even with his assistance, how are we ever 
to turn that big scow over and get it into the 
water? ” 


“THAT’S ALL” 


73 


“ I can’t guess, for one,” answered Allan, “ un- 
less one of us walks up to Peoria and hires some 
men to help. Fortunately we can hire men, as 
we’ve got the freight and passage money that we 
didn’t have to pay.” 

At that moment it occurred to Jeannette that 
poor Joe could not have had any supper. So she 
asked him ; and when he answered “No” in a tone 
that seemed to signify that a little detail of that 
kind was of no possible consequence, the tender- 
hearted girl stirred up the fire, dropping a tear or 
two into it, and very soon she had ready for the 
poor fellow a hearty supper of fried ham, fried 
potatoes, and a pot of steaming hot coffee. 

Joe ate with the relish of a very hungry man, 
and as he ate his tongue loosened a little, so that 
he responded to questions rather more freely than 
he had done before. 

“How did you get here, Joe?” was the first 
question. 

“Jumped overboard, swum ashore, walked.” 

“ Tell us about it.” 

“ Nothing to tell. Just went aft a bit, took off 
my boots an’ waited. When the boat ran close in 
shore, jumped overboard an’ swum. Then walked. 
That’s all.” 

“ But why did you do it, Joe? ” asked Jeannette. 


74 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Wanted to help, that’s all.” 

“ But you forfeited your wages.” 

Joe laughed a little. Then he said: 

“ ’Twan’t much.” Then he rose to his feet and 
with manifest effort said : 

“ An’ it don’t make any difference. I saw you 
fellows needed help, an’ you had helped me. So 
I was just bound to help you of course. That’s 
all.” Joe ended most of his statements with the 
phrase, “ That’s all.” The effort to speak seemed 
to wear him out, and giving it up he ended it by 
saying, “ That’s all.” It was like writing “ Finis” 
when a book is done. 

“But Joe,” said Theodore, “ what will you do 
when we get the boat built? ” 

“ Go with you and help. That’s all.” 

“ But we’re very poor,” broke in Jeannette, 
“ and we can’t afford to pay you wages.” 

Joe laughed again. Then he said: 

“Don’t want any wages. Just want to help. 
That’s all.” 

“ But Joe,” insisted Jeannette, “ you are a strong 
man and you ought to be paid for your work.” 

Again Joe laughed, but this time he said noth- 
ing. Theodore, seeing that, for the present at 
least, there was no use in arguing the thing, turned 
the conversation. 


“THAT’S ALL” 75 

“ I didn’t dream you were a carpenter, Joe,” he 
said. 

“ No, you didn’t dream it,” answered the 
man. 

“ What do you mean ? ” 

“ Why, it’s a fact. You didn’t dream it. That’s 
all.” 

Then the poor fellow seemed to make an effort 
to gather his wandering wits together, and he suc- 
ceeded in saying: 

“Was a ship-carpenter. Was a good one. 
Built boats, hired men, built bridges, made money, 
till the beam broke and hurt my head. That was 
Grimshaw’s fault. He put beam wrong. Told 
him so, but he wouldn’t mind. So it broke and 
— that’s all.” 

“ Do you mean that a broken beam struck your 
head?” asked Jeannette, whose sympathies were 
now completely aroused. 

“Yes. Sometimes I can think, sometimes I 
can’t. I don’t care. That’s all.” 

“ Poor fellow,” said Jeannette. Just at that mo- 
ment Joe’s bare feet were stretched out, and the 
girl saw that they were bruised and blistered by 
his long walk. 

“Where are your shoes, Joe?” she anxiously 
asked. 


7 6 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ On the steamboat,” he answered. “ Not 
shoes, boots.” 

“ Oh, I see, you took them off in order to swim 
better?” 

“Yes. Meant to carry ’em but forgot. That’s 
all.” 

“ Theodore,” spoke the girl, “ we’ve a stock of 
boots and shoes here to sell to farmers. And 
we’ve socks too. Won’t you please hunt out a 
pair of each that will fit Joe? ” 

“ I will to-morrow, certainly, Jean. But I ” 

“ No, do it to-night, please. And get him a hat 
too out of our stock. He has already done 
enough to earn that much, and he’s our friend and 
he’s in need.” 

Now little Miss Jeannette was the very young- 
est person in the party, but her brothers were ac- 
customed to do her will, mainly because her will 
was apt to be right, and they loved her. So they 
lighted torches, and searched their stock of goods, 
and opened boxes, until at last Joe was supplied 
with boots and socks and a hat. Then Jeannette 
thanked them and went to the little nest provided 
for her, while the rest stretched themselves before 
the fire and went to sleep. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE HOLE IN JOE’S HEAD 

Work upon the boat was begun again early 
the next morning, and under Joe’s direction it 
advanced rapidly. Sometimes, when a difficulty 
arose, Joe would quit work, sit down upon the 
ground, bury his face between his knees, and 
seemingly make a strenuous effort to think. In- 
deed it seemed always difficult for him to think, 
or rather to find out what it was that he thought. 
For that reason he would often leave a question 
unanswered for a long time and then suddenly re- 
ply to it as if he had been searching in his mind 
for the answer and had just discovered it. But 
the answer, when it came, was always shrewd and 
to the point. In the same way, when any problem 
of construction baffled Joe, and he sat down with 
his face between his knees to work it out, he 
seemed always to get the right answer. After 
sitting for a time — greater or less, according to the 
difficulty — he would suddenly rise and set to work 

again, not with any hesitation or uncertainty, but 
77 


78 RUNNING THE RIVER 

with all the confidence of a mechanic who is per- 
fect master of his business. 

Commenting upon this a day or two later Allan 
said: 

“ Joe seems to me to have a very good mind, but 
somehow he seems to have lost his grip on it.” 

“ The poor fellow has been hurt,” answered 
Theodore, “ and — well, I think you are right, A 1 ; 
he has lost his grip on his mind. At least he loses 
it for a time, and it requires a struggle to recover 
it. This morning he went mooning around, after 
making some measurements, and I overheard him 
talking to himself. I heard him say: ‘ Five times 
seven are forty-five. No, that ain’t right. Lem ’me 
see. How much is five times seven? ’ Then after 
thinking vainly for a while, he sat down on the 
ground, picked up a stick, and began making 
marks in the sand. I watched him. He made 
seven marks in a row. Then he made seven marks 
in another row. Then he counted the rows, ‘ one, 
two.’ Thus he went on, counting each time, till he 
had five rows with seven marks in each. Then he 
counted the marks. ‘ Five times seven are thirty- 
five,’ he said, and satisfied of his result he went 
back to work as confidently as anybody might who 
had his multiplication table by heart.” 

“I’ve noticed the same thing in his talk,” said 











































« • 










BUILDING THE STORE-BOAT. 


Page 79 




THE HOLE IN JOE’S HEAD 79 

Jeannette. “ Sometimes he won’t say anything in 
answer to a question. Then after a while he’ll 
answer it quite accurately and intelligently. I 
think Allan is right. Joe has a good mind of 
which he has partially lost control, and he knows a 
great deal that he cannot readily use.” 

But while all this study of Joe’s case was going 
on, work upon the boat was rapidly advancing. 
With regard to most of it Joe’s proceedings 
seemed to be directed by long habit rather than by 
present thinking. Most of it was work of a kind 
that he seemed to have done so often before as to 
make it easy for him. Thus when the scow was 
completed and it became necessary to turn it over 
and launch it, Joe had no difficulty in setting up 
a sort of derrick, attaching to it the block and 
tackle which the boys had brought with them, and 
turning the boat over into the water so that only 
one of her gunwales was aground. Obviously he 
had done all this many times before, so that it 
came easy to him to do it again as a matter of 
mere habit. Then in the same way he showed the 
boys how to shove the scow off the shore into the 
water and to hold her in position. That, too, he 
had done so often that it required no effort of the 
mind to do it again. 

The three boys worked diligently with Joe, and 


8o 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


before Saturday night the little store-boat was 
so far finished that by working late under bright 
moonlight they were able to bestow all their goods 
within her deck-house and to move in. 

A diminutive cabin had been built at the stern, 
where a little cook stove was installed, while on 
the other side of it there was a bunk for Jean- 
nette to sleep in. The boys were to sleep in the 
“ store ” part of the boat, and to that end they 
fitted up swinging bunks for themselves under 
the counter. They planned one for Joe, but he 
would not permit its construction. He insisted 
upon making a movable cot for himself which he 
could place across the little front door of the boat 
every night. He got his scattered wits sufficient- 
ly together to explain his purpose in this. 

“ You’ll sell goods and get money,” he said. 
“Somebody’ll try to steal the money. Joe’ll be 
at the door. That’s all.” 

The boys saw that the thought was a shrewd 
one. It was their purpose to lie at the little land- 
ings along the river, selling goods. Their boat 
would be easily accessible to any thief who might 
choose to enter. But it had only one entrance — 
that of the little door in front. To guard that by 
some means more effective than a mere lock was 
obviously necessary. With Joe’s cot lying across 


THE HOLE IN JOE’S HEAD 81 

and directly against the door, it would of course 
be impossible for any evilly disposed person to 
enter without arousing the whole crew. 

Joe’s devotion touched the boys tenderly, and 
they and Jeannette were a good deal troubled over 
it. They felt that the poor, half-witted fellow was 
every day rendering them valuable service, for 
which they were paying him no wages, except his 
board, which was in fact costing them nothing. 
For every day Joe went out on the prairie, or into 
the little woodlands that skirted the banks of the 
river, and by wiles of which he could give no ac- 
count captured and brought back prairie chick- 
ens, grouse, squirrels, and rabbits, more than 
enough to make good all that he ate of their sup- 
plies. In answer to all suggestions of wages he 
laughed in his peculiar way and answered : 

“ You saved me from the mate. I want to help. 
That’s all.” 

On Sunday, when the store-boat was nearly 
ready to begin her voyage, the party sat together 
and talked — all but Joe. He was content to lis- 
ten, and he did so eagerly, though how much he 
understood of what they said they could not know 
or guess. At any rate he seemed interested and 
happy. 

“ And after all,” said Theodore, “to be happy 
6 


82 RUNNING THE RIVER 

is the best that life can bring to any human 
being.” 

“ Is it?” asked Edgar. “I don’t think so. I 
think sometimes the worst thing that can happen 
to a person is to be happy and contented.” 

“ How do you mean, Ed? ” 

“ Well, it seems to me the ‘ poor whites,’ of 
whom we have so many in Missouri now, are 
about the most contented people that I ever saw, 
and in their way the happiest. If they weren’t so 
happy sitting still in the sun or the shade and 
doing nothing and living half-starved all the time, 
they would wash their faces sometimes, and cul- 
tivate their crops and grow better off, and educate 
their children and become better men and women. 
As it is they pass their lives in a laziness which 
condemns them to perpetual dirt and poverty and 
keeps them in ignorance, in the most fruitful 
country that God ever made, and a country with 
plenty of schools. Generation after generation 
they remain as they are, simply because they are 
contented and happy.” 

After thinking a while Theodore answered: 

“ I suppose you are right, Ed. Somebody in a 
book speaks of ‘ divine discontent,’ and I suppose 
discontent is a virtue in its way.” 

“ Of course it is,” responded Ed. “ A man who 


THE HOLE IN JOE’S HEAD 83 

is contented with things as they are never bestirs 
himself to better them, either for himself or for 
other people. The people who do things, the 
people who make things better, are the discon- 
tented people. And as for happiness, I suppose a 
drunken man is happy if you let him alone to sleep 
and drink. No, I don’t think it is enough for a 
person to be contented and happy. He’d be the 
better for unhappiness and discontent if they 
could stir him to exert himself for the bettering of 
his condition.” 

The talk drifted presently to phrenology, which 
was at that time everywhere talked about, and by 
many believed to be a coming science. Without 
quite believing in the so-called science, Theodore 
had read a good many books about it, and had 
learned its mapping-out of the human head pretty 
accurately. Presently Jeannette said: 

“ Feel of Joe’s bumps, Teddy, and tell us what’s 
the matter with him.” 

The suggestion interested all the party, and Joe 
was willing enough to submit himself to the 
phrenological examination. 

“Hold on, what’s this?” cried out Theodore 
presently, as he passed his fingers over the man’s 
head. “What made that dent in your skull, 
Joe?” 


8 4 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ The beam, that’s all.” 

“ Do you mean that the beam struck you there 
and made that dent in your head? ” 

“ Yes. It hit me there.” 

“ Come here, all of you and feel of it,” said 
Theodore, with some excitement in his tones. 
“ It’s a hole as big as half a dollar and deep enough 
to hold a tablespoonful of water. The skull has 
been crushed in by that much. It’s no wonder 
Joe finds it difficult to think.” 

“Ain’t tryin’ to think now,” said the poor fel- 
low. “ Hurts to think. Never do it unless I 
must. That’s all.” 

“ Well, I don’t wonder,” said Allan, as he in his 
turn examined the dented skull. “ I should think 
it would hurt you. But I say, Theodore — Well, 
never mind. I’ll talk about that later. I think I 
see a way in which we may be able to pay Joe bet- 
ter wages than he ever earned in his life.” 

“Don’t want any wages,” said Joe quickly. 
“ Only want to help. That’s all.” 

“All right, Joe,” said Jeannette, whose voice 
and manner always had a certain sort of caress in 
them and always seemed to soothe Joe in his mo- 
ments of excitement, which were not infrequent. 
“ Its all right, Joe, and you’re helping all the time. 
These stupid boys never would have got the boat 


THE HOLE IN JOE’S HEAD 85 

put together if you hadn’t been here to help. 
Now you may help me by starting a fire in the 
cook stove, so that I can get supper.” 

The man seemed to shed his excitement almost 
as one puts off an overcoat, and as he started 
away to lay and light the fire Jeannette said to 
her brothers : 

“ I wouldn’t say anything more about wages, 
boys. It seems to hurt and annoy him.” 

“We won’t,” responded Allan, “ but if my guess 
is right we’ll find a way, when we get back to St. 
Louis, to pay him better wages than he ever 
dreamed of earning in all his life.” 

“How, Allan?” queried Jeannette eagerly. 
But at that moment Joe reappeared announcing 
that the fire was burning and the kettle singing. 
So Allan said: 

“ I’ll tell you all about it some other time when 
we can talk quietly. Just now we’re all hungry, I 
suppose. I know I am.” 



CHAPTER IX 

THE BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE 

On Monday the work upon the boat was fin- 
ished. Then the boys broke open their boxes 
and arranged their goods upon the shelves and 
counter of their little floating store. There were 
also some large glass showcases, one of them 
filled with ribbons and the like, another with 
pocket knives of all sorts, and still another with 
trinkets of many kinds for its contents. 

The stock of dry-goods consisted largely of 
domestics, calicoes, and other cheap fabrics, but 
there were some more costly dress goods for wom- 
en, merinos, bombazines, etc. There was a con- 
siderable supply of men’s clothing and a still 
larger stock of boots, shoes, and hats for people 
of both sexes. There was an upper shelf full of 
Connecticut clocks, and there were grindstones, 
hoes, garden rakes, and the like in abundance. 

As a very important adjunct there was a row of 
jars filled with variously colored 'stick candy and 
two or three jars filled with “ candy kisses.” These 

last were little cubical blocks of candy, each ac- 
86 , . 


BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE 87 

companied by a slip of paper with a stanza of 
“ poetry ” printed on it, the whole wrapped in pa- 
per of some violent hue. French candies, choc- 
olate creams, and bon-bons were wholly unknown 
in those days, but the passion for sweets, among 
children and young girls, was as positive then as it 
is now. 

In brief, the little boat was a complete country 
store, and under Jeannette’s direction the goods 
were so arranged as to make a tempting display. 

Before setting out on their journey down the 
river Theodore employed the entire party, except 
Joe, who could not help in such work, in making a 
complete inventory of the “ stock in trade ” in a 
little blank book provided for that purpose. This, 
with another blank book marked “ Record of 
Sales,” he carefully placed on a shelf over the little 
cabin door, saying: 

“Now I want all of you to bear in mind that if 
anything happens to us, each of us is to make it 
his personal business to save these two books at 
all hazards, no matter what else may be lost. 
They must be placed on this shelf every night.” 

“ But why, Teddy?” It was Edgar who deliv- 
ered this question. 

“ Why, simply because our boat and our goods 
are covered by an indemnity insurance.” 


88 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ What is that? ” 

“ It is an agreement on the part of an insurance 
company to pay us the value of whatever we may 
lose by fire or by wreck in the river. If anything 
happens to us, we must be able to show precisely 
what and how much we have lost.” 

“ Oh, I see. The inventory shows what we start 
with and the Record of Sales will show, from day 
to day, how much we’ve parted with.” 

“ Precisely. But as our goods are worth nearly 
twice as much up here as they cost us in St. 
Louis, the company insures them for twenty per 
cent more than cost price. That is to say, if we 
lose any of them by fire or by sinking, the com- 
pany must pay us what the goods lost originally 
cost us, and twenty per cent, or one-fifth, more.” 

“ I wonder the insurance company is willing to 
do that — to insure goods for more than they are 
worth.” 

“It doesn’t. It insures them for much less than 
they are worth. Our goods will sell here in the 
Illinois River for nearly twice what they cost in 
St. Louis, and they are insured for only twenty 
per cent above cost. Even if we were criminals, 
willing to burn or sink our boat in order to cheat 
the insurance company, we should be fools to do 
anything of the kind because we can do so much 


BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE 89 

better by selling the goods. The company relies 
upon that and upon the fact that we are not crimi- 
nals. Most people are not criminals, and in busi- 
ness everybody safely reckons upon that.” 

With matters thus clearly understood, and with 
the instruction to each of the party that he must 
keep an exact memorandum of every sale made, 
with the cost and the selling price of everything 
sold, Theodore ordered the boat cast loose as soon 
as everything was fully ready. 

It was late in the afternoon when she was made 
fast again at her first landing five or six miles 
further down the stream. But even before night 
there were customers aboard, eager to buy, and it 
was not until nine o’clock that night that the 
last of them left the boat, and so not until that 
hour did the Faraday party sit down to their 
supper. 

Theodore, who had studied the commercial pos- 
sibilities of the river as diligently as Allan had 
studied its geography and history, explained as the 
party ate. 

“ You see,” he said, “ there are a dozen farms or 
so about here — that is to say within ten miles — 
and the people living upon them all use this as 
their landing. They bring their produce here for 
shipment down the river, and the steamboats 


9 o 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


bring here whatever goods they order from Chica- 
go or Peoria or St. Louis. But ” 

“ But first,” interrupted Edgar, “ why are there 
a dozen farms opened around here when there are 
none at all for many miles above or below? ” 

“Well, for one thing there is a good landing 
here, and men who have the whole prairie to 
choose their farms from naturally try to get near 
a good landing, so that they may easily send their 
produce to market. Then again, there is a good 
fringe of timber along the river bank here, and 
that makes this part more desirable than some 
other parts, or at least it did at first, before people 
learned to use corn for fuel.” 

“ Why, you don’t mean to say they burn corn ! ” 
exclaimed Jeannette, with a shocked intonation in 
her voice. 

“ Certainly they do. In this part of the country 
corn is the fuel most used. And why not? It is 
particularly good fuel.” 

“ But think of it, Teddy, when you burn corn 
you are burning food while many people are hun- 
gry.” 

“ But if you can’t get the food to the hungry 
people, what’s the good of keeping it and going 
cold for lack of a fire ? ” 

“But I’ve always been taught,” answered the 


BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE 91 

girl, “that it is wicked to destroy food. I remem- 
ber once when I was a very little girl I had a piece 
of bread and butter. It was too big for me, and 
when I had eaten all I could swallow, I threw the 
crust into the fire just to see if it would burn. I 
got a very solemn scolding for that. They told 
me there were many hungry people in the world, 
and that it was very, very wicked in me to burn 
the bread that might keep some hungry person 
from starving. Now that I think of it, I don’t see 
how I could have got that crust to any one of the 

hungry people, of course, but ” 

“ But' the lesson lingers in your mind. Now let 
me explain. In this country along the Illinois 
River, the soil produces corn in absolutely won- 
derful quantities. When the whole region is un- 
der cultivation, as it will be some day, this great 
prairie country will produce enough to feed whole 
nations. But just now it is difficult to get the 
corn to market. Not long after it ripens and is 
ready for shipment this river freezes over, and 
there is no other route by which the farmers here 
can ship their corn. There’ll be railroads some 
day of course, but there aren’t now, and the 
farmers must look out for the present. Now there 
is very little wood in this country as you can see 
for yourselves. Coal has been found in several 


92 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


places and there is probably a vast quantity of it 
underneath these prairies. In fact the first coal 
ever burned in America was found in this Illinois 
River country, but that doesn’t help the farmers 
around here, so long as the nearest mines are too 
far away for them to get the coal. If coal were 
hauled here across the prairies for a hundred miles 
it would cost, at the very least, fifty or sixty cents 
a bushel, while the farmer here cannot get more 
than ten or twelve cents a bushel for his corn, and 
often not so much as that. When the river is 
frozen over he cannot sell his corn at all.” 

“ Then it would take five or six bushels of corn 
to buy one bushel of coal?” queried Ed. 

“ Yes, and more than that, and a bushel of corn, 
burned in a grate, will last as long and give as 
much heat as a bushel of soft coal. Why should 
the farmer give five bushels of corn for one bushel 
of coal when one bushel of corn would do as much 
heating as the coal could? Surely that would be 
the wickedest kind of waste.” 

“Of course,” said Edgar. “But now I’ve an- 
other question. These people from the dozen or 
more farms around here seem positively hungry 
for our goods. I wonder why somebody doesn’t 
set up a store here to supply them.” 

“ Simply because a dozen farm families, most of 


BEGINNING OF THE VOYAGE 93 

them poor, are not enough to support a permanent 
store. These people haven’t had a chance for a 
year, perhaps, to buy the things they need. And 
when we go away they won’t have another chance 
for another year, perhaps. So they have kept us 
busy this evening, and they’ll keep us still busier 
to-morrow and possibly next day. After that our 
trade will rapidly fall off. Then we must move 
on down the river. If we were to stay here we 
shouldn’t sell enough to pay for our salt. Their 
trade is enough to keep a store busy for a few 
days. But it wouldn’t maintain one for the year 
round or for a single month for that matter. You 
see, these people are poor, especially so far as ready 
money is concerned. Even this evening most of 
them paid for their goods in farm products, and 
to-morrow and next day still more of them will do 
so. By the way, we must stop talking now and 
write up our books. Ed, if you’ll write in the In- 
ventory of Goods all the farm products received, 
I’ll write up the sales in the other book.” 

“ But why must we put the farm products in 
our list of goods? We shan’t sell them.” 

“ I sincerely hope to — in St. Louis. In the 
mean time they will be goods covered by our insur- 
ance.” 

“ Oh, I see. All right.” 


<D 

CHAPTER X 

TRADE 

Slowly the store-boat moved down the river, 
stopping at every remote country landing long 
enough to sell all the goods wanted there by the 
farmers round about, and to buy all the produce 
that was offered for sale and then moving on 
again. At the end of a fortnight Theodore’s care- 
fully conducted book-keeping showed that the 
party had by that time received enough in actual 
money to cover the cost of the goods sold and a 
little more. They had received besides a large 
quantity of valuable country products of various 
kinds, which represented clear profit. They had 
taken in butter, eggs, raw wool, potatoes, onions, 
bacon, hams, needle-work samplers, knitted socks 
and stockings, hanks of yarn, the dried skins of 
animals, bulky bags of feathers, great bunches of 
peacocks’ plumes, and other such things. The 
farmers had such things to exchange for boots, 
or clothes, or grindstones, or clocks, or blankets ; 
while their wives and daughters brought in what 
they could in payment for ribbons, calicoes, and 

94 


TRADE 


95 


dress goods, and their long-legged boys bought 
pocket-knives, suspenders^ — or “ galluses,” as they 
called that article of masculine wear — in exchange 
for animal skins, slippery elm bark, ginseng, cala- 
mus, or whatever else they had to trade away for 
the goods they wanted. 

There was something else that the Faradays got 
in great abundance, the value of which they did 
not know at the time of making the purchases. 
That was a great quantity of saddle blankets. 
Many of the farmers in that region had looms and 
spinning wheels, and as they raised large flocks of 
sheep they had plenty of wool. This the women- 
kind during the long winters were accustomed to 
card and spin and weave into such fabrics as they 
might. 

One day a tall, bony, angular young woman, 
awkward in person, aggressive in speech, and 
loud of voice, came down over the bank carrying 
on her back a tremendous load of something done 
up in a sheet. Marching like a grenadier on 
board the boat she threw her tremendous burden 
down at Ed’s feet. 

“ There,” said Ed, “ that reminds me of the Pil- 
grim’s Progress. Your pack is for all the world 
such as Christian carried across the Slough of 
.Despond. What have you got in it? ” 


9 6 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Well, mister,” she said, speaking in the rude 
dialect of the country, “ them is saddle blankets 
and they’re as good saddle blankets as you ever 
seed.” 

She opened the bundle, and Edgar, who didn’t 
know much about saddle blankets, inspected them 
as knowingly as if he had been an expert in that 
kind of goods, until finally he lifted his head, say- 
ing nothing. 

“ Well now, boy,” said the young woman, “ what 
are you going to give me for ’em? ” 

“ I really do not know,” said Edgar ; “ what do 
you think they are worth ? ” She named a price. 
It was just double that which she could have got 
for her saddle blankets at any of the stores in the 
country towns. Edgar did not know this then, 
but he learned it afterward. Still he would not 
let the young woman see his ignorance of values — 
he being one of a company of traders — so he agreed 
to take the blankets at the price she had named, 
paying for them iii goods, and as the goods were 
sold at nearly double their original cost in St. 
Louis, he felt reasonably safe in thus bargaining, 
while, as the prices the boys charged for their goods 
were in fact considerably lower than those at 
which the country people could buy similar things 
at the stores of the little towns, the young woman 



THEIR CUSTOMERS WERE OF ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS. 


Page qb 































TRADE 


97 


was abundantly satisfied with her trade. She was 
so well satisfied indeed that just as she was leav- 
ing with the calicoes and other things which she 
had purchased she turned to Ed and said : 

“ Pshaw, boy, you ain’t a little bit of a store- 
keeper. If you know’d your business you’d ’a got 
them blankets for jest half what you paid for 
’em.” 

Ed summoned all the dignity at his command 
and said : 

“ Madam, I am satisfied if you are.” But after 
the woman was gone and the little party were 
gathered together at their supper, Ed related the 
incident and wondered what they were going to do 
about it. 

“If I have in fact set a price twice as high as it 
ought to be, we shall be overwhelmed with offers 
of saddle blankets as we go down the river ; and 
yet having set that price I do not see how we can 
refuse to pay it hereafter.” 

Theodore, who had looked a little bit into such 
matters as this before leaving St. Louis, was satis- 
fied that there need be no money lost upon saddle 
blankets purchased as these had been. 

“At any rate,” he said: “ If we get full price for 
our goods we’ll get that much back for the saddle 

blankets.” 

7 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


98 

A week or two later, as the little company gath- 
ered again in the evening for consultation, Theo- 
dore said : 

“ Our best trade has been in coffee, sugar, and 
molasses. Next to that come calico, ribbons, and 
dress goods. I’ll bet a stick of candy that nobody 
in the party can guess what comes next in impor- 
tance, the bet to be paid out of the candy jar no 
matter who wins or loses.” 

“ Boots and shoes,” cried out Ed, chiefly be- 
cause it was his function to sell boots and shoes, 
and he had been impressed with the magnitude of 
the demand for them. 

“Wrong,” answered Theodore. 

“ Pocket-books,” said Allan. “ I mean porte- 
monnaies to carry money in. Every man I have 
seen has wanted a pocket-book, whether he had 
anything to put into it or not. One man even 
wanted me to trust him until next summer for a 
pocket-book, on the ground that he pressingly 
needed it but had not the twenty-five-cent piece I 
asked him for it.” 

“ That’s pretty close,” answered Theodore, “but 
it’s wrong. You see it is only the men who buy 
pocket-books, and both sexes are to be considered. 
Come, Jeannette, you haven’t guessed.” 

“ I don’t need to, I know,” the girl answered, 


TRADE 99 

“without any guessing. Give me the candy, 
please.” 

“ But you haven’t won it yet. What is your 
guess ? ” 

“ Why, cheap jewelry of course. I have had 
charge of that, and I have sold out almost the en- 
tire stock of it.” 

“ Right,” answered Theodore, “and I have sent 
for a new supply to be brought up by the next 
steamboat. That reminds me of another thing. 
We have done very well on the country produce 
we have sent to St. Louis by the several steam- 
boat trips, but curiously enough we have done 
best on the thing we knew least about. We have 
sold our butter and eggs for about what we paid 
for them in goods, so on them we have made 
almost exactly the profit we charged on the goods 
— fifty or one hundred per cent — but on the sad- 
dle blankets, about which we were doubtful, we 
have made a bigger profit than on anything else. 

“ I remember being scared a little bit about them 
after you had fixed the price, Ed, or let that 
young woman fix it, because as we moved along 
down the river that particular production of the 
Illinois country seemed to come to us in steadily 
increasing amounts. One young woman, franker 
than the rest, told me she had sat up nights to 


IOO 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


weave saddle blankets because she had heard from 
up the river, before we reached her landing, that 
we were paying double price for them. I ob- 
served that she did not mention that little fact un- 
til after she had sold her saddle blankets.” 

“ Well,”’said Ed, “we were and we were not. 
We were paying nearly double what these country 
stores up here buy them for and paying it in goods 
on which we made a profit of fifty or one hundred 
per cent, and that is why so many of them were 
brought to us.” 

“ But it turns out,” broke in Theodore, “ as I 
learn from a letter sent me by Mr. Chouteau, that 
we have done uncommonly well on that specula- 
tion. You know I sent him a large consignment, 
all we had on hand, by the last down trip of the 
steamboat. He writes me now that these large 
purchases of saddle blankets have been about the 
most fortunate thing we have done. It seems that 
the Government is fitting out some expeditions to 
march westward just now, and has advertised for 
saddle blankets by the thousand. As there is 
never any great supply of such goods in the market 
at any one time Mr. Chouteau put in a bid very 
much above what we paid for ours. The bid has 
been accepted and our saddle blankets are sold for 
nearly twice what we paid for them in goods, so 


TRADE 


IOI 


that we make a big double profit, one upon the 
goods and one on the saddle blankets.” In fact 
we are selling them for nearly four times what the 
goods that we gave in exchange for them cost us.” 

“But, Theodore,” broke in Jeannette, “is all 
that honest and fair? ” 

“ Perfectly, dear. If it were not, there isn’t one 
of us who would have anything to do with it. 
You see these people have saddle blankets to sell. 
They know what they can get for them in the 
towns nearest to them. We come along and land 
nearer to them than the nearest of the towns is. 
We have a lot of goods to sell that they very much 
want to buy. We sell these goods cheaper than 
they can buy them in the little towns, and we buy 
their saddle blankets in exchange, for more than 
they can sell them for. So they are benefited and 
we are benefited, and whatever profit we make is 
nothing more than our pay for taking the trouble 
and the risk of bringing goods up here for the use 
of these people. On the other hand, the Govern- 
ment buys these saddle blankets from us for a 
good deal less than it could get them from any- 
body else at a time of scarcity, so the Government 
also is benefited. That, after all, is all there is to 
trade.” 

Theodore had been studying political economy, 


102 RUNNING THE RIVER 

you see, and was full of enthusiasm for its prin- 
ciples. 

“ That’s quite clear now,” said Allan, “ but my 
eyes are not, so I am going to bed and I advise 
like conduct on the part of the rest of you owls.” 


CHAPTER XI 


A SUNDAY TALK 

On Sundays of course the store-boat was closed 
to all buyers and sellers, and it was on Sunday 
chiefly that the little party sat together and talked. 
Sometimes they sat on the deck or roof of their 
boat. Sometimes they sat upon the shore, par- 
ticularly when a friendly sycamore tree offered 
them shelter from the sun. If it had rained they 
would of course have sat within the store, but dur- 
ing many weeks it did not rain at all, and the 
drought threatened the farmers with disaster; 
for their corn suffered with thirst, curling up its 
broad leaves by day and only opening them at 
night to drink the dews which alone kept the 
stalks alive. 

The river was slowly shrinking up, and the little 
stern-wheel steamer on which the party had come 
up the river had to be replaced by one of still 
lighter draught, one that, as the captain said, 
“ could run on a fairly heavy dew.” 

By this steamer the boys had from time to time 
shipped to St. Louis for sale all the farm produce 

103 


104 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


they had taken in exchange for their goods, and 
on each trip down the river the steamboat had 
landed by the side of the store-boat to receive the 
freight. The boys observed that whenever the 
steamboat came Joe was sure to be out on the 
prairie somewhere, with the shotgun which they 
had secured for his use early in the voyage, and 
with which he had kept their table abundantly 
supplied with game. Joe still stood in terror of 
the brutal mate, Billy Patterson. 

Sunday was a dull day for Joe, and he would 
have spent all of his Sundays shooting on the 
prairie if the boys had permitted, but they would 
not. So poor Joe was apt to spend the day large- 
ly in sleep. Sometimes, however, when his 
clouded mind happened to be working better than 
usual, he listened eagerly to their talk. How 
much of it he understood they could only vaguely 
conjecture, but it was certain that he understood 
some of it. For now and then he interposed a 
shrewd question which left no doubt upon that 
point. 

“You were interrupted, Allan,” said Jeannette 
one Sunday f “ just when you were going to tell us 
something about this Illinois country being older 
than the ” 

“Oh, yes, I remember,” said Allan. “And I’m 


A SUNDAY TALK 


io 5 

glad I was interrupted, for it has given me a 
chance to read a great deal more about the sub- 
ject. It is an interesting story. You see while 
the English were settling in Virginia and Massa- 
chusetts, the French were planting themselves 
along the St. Lawrence River and the Great 
Lakes. But the English and the French colonists 
had totally different notions of how to turn 
America to account. The English, after starva- 
tion had taught them the folly of wasting their 
time in hunting for gold, set to work to open 
farms and make homes for themselves.” 

“ Pardon the interruption, Allan,” broke in Ed, 
“ but there is one thing I never could understand. 
Those Englishmen who came over to found the 
first colonies must have seen clearly — unless they 
were blind — that they had possession of the most 
fruitful soil in the world.” 

“Yes, I see what your question is. You are 
wondering why they didn’t set to work to raise 
their own food, instead of depending upon ships 
from London to bring them something to eat. I 
can’t answer the question. Neither can anybody 
else apparently. At any rate none of the histories 
answer it satisfactorily.” 

“Well, for one thing,” said Theodore, “they 
began all wrong. The Colonists were sent out by 


o6 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


companies in London not to settle the country for 
themselves and grow up with it, but to make 
money for the companies. Then, again, the peo- 
ple sent out were the wrong sort of people for the 
most part. They weren’t like the sturdy farmers 
and huntsmen who afterward crossed the moun- 
tains to occupy this great valley, or the traders 
and trappers who carried the St. Louis fur trade 
across the Rocky Mountains. But all this is an 
interruption. Go on, Al.” 

“ I should say it was,” responded Allan. “ But 
what I was going to say was that the French 
method was altogether different. The English 
after their first mistakes tried to settle the country 
and open farms. They sent for women to come 
out and be wives to them. They had decided to 
stay. They cut down the forests, fought the In- 
dians, and cultivated fields. In the mean while 
the French were fishing and trading: there were 
never half so many Frenchmen in the country as 
there were Englishmen, but while the Englishmen 
were managing their little settlements the French- 
men were pushing out into the wilderness in 
search of furs. Another thing: the English- 
men were always quarreling with the Indians and 
fighting them; the French traders made friends 
with them instead, and many of them married In- 


A SUNDAY TALK 


107 

dian women. Still another thing, and one of even 
more importance: wherever the French trader 
went, he was accompanied by the French priest. 
These priests were brave men, so devoted to their 
work of converting the Indians and civilizing 
them that they never seemed to care what dangers 
they might encounter or what hardships they 
might have to endure. They were real heroes in 
their way, and they did more than everybody else 
combined to make and keep friendship between 
the French and the Indians. The Indians soon 
came to understand that whoever else might be 
their enemies the black- robed French priests were 
their friends. The Indians always admired cour- 
age and honored it. But especially they admired 
the courage of the priests who, without any guns 
in their hands with which to defend themselves, 
boldly went into the Indian country and took all 
the risks of death or torture that there might be 
there. 

“ So, while the English colonists were slowly 
building up little communities in their Atlantic 
coast countries, the French priests and traders 
were pushing out into the interior of the continent 
and making themselves masters there.” 

“Another illustration,” said Theodore, “of the 
eternal fact that molasses catches more flies than 


108 RUNNING THE RIVER 

vinegar does; that commerce and education can 
do more real conquering in a year than bullets 
and bayonets can in ten.” 

“Well, at any rate,” Allan resumed, “while the 
English slowly built up their colonies on the At- 
lantic coast, the French traders, trappers, priests, 
and explorers made their way westward, made 
this Illinois country their own, discovered the 
Mississippi River, and took possession of all the 
vast region that it drains. Long before the Eng- 
lish colonists became strong enough to cross the 
Alleghanies the French had trading posts, mis- 
sionary stations, and even little towns out here in 
what is now the State of Illinois. The Illinois 
River afforded them an easy route from the great 
lakes to the Mississippi long before the Ohio was 
explored, and the prairies here made a great im- 
pression upon their minds as a singularly fertile 
region which farmers could plow and cultivate 
without having first to cut down forests and grub 
up stumps. 

“ All this occurred before the year 1700, and after 
that the French settlements multiplied and grew. 
The first coal ever found in what is now the 
United States was found at Ottawa as early as 
1679.” 

“But, Allan,” asked Jeannette, “how does it 


A SUNDAY TALK 


109 

happen, then, that this country isn’t still 
French ? ” 

“Well, while the French traders and priests 
pushed their explorations into this western coun- 
try as the English never did, and set up trading 
posts and towns out here and all along the Ohio 
River, till they owned the whole country west of 
the Alleghanies, and had a line of forts and towns 
and trading posts which stretched all the way 
from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth 
of the Mississippi, they had far fewer people to 
occupy all this vast stretch of country than the 
English had in their little settlements on the At- 
lantic. The French have never been an emigrat- 
ing people. They have a lovely country of their 
own, where they are contented to live and be 
happy. Their priests came out here to civilize the 
Indians, and their traders came to buy furs and 
sell goods and enrich themselves. But for the 
most part their farmers didn’t come, and so when 
the question arose whether the English or the 
French, who both claimed it, should dominate this 
western country, the English took it by virtue 
chiefly of numbers, after long years of war, that 
ended in the year 1763, thirteen years before the 
Declaration of Independence was signed. 

“ But this Illinois country was old and historical 


I IO 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


when that occurred, and its capital Kaskaskia, 
down in the southern part of the State, was an im- 
portant town before the revolution. Before Ver- 
mont, or Kentucky, or Tennessee, or Ohio was 
even named on the map, this Illinois country was 
not only explored, but was the seat of a great 
trade. 

“ Illinois was a part of the original Louisiana, but 
in 1763 all the country east of the Mississippi be- 
came English, and it was forty years later when 
our Missouri and all the region west was trans- 
ferred by the French to the Americans, the direct 
successors of the English. That was one of the 
great turning-points in history.” 

“ How do you mean? ” asked Edgar. 

“Why, that cession meant that the United 
States should some day become the greatest na- 
tion on earth — as it is rapidly coming to be — in- 
stead of being a republic with rivals owning the 
country all about her, and with an alien nation 
controlling the mouth of the great river on which 
the people of the best part of the republic are 
dependent for an outlet. But we can’t talk of 
that now. It is time to get supper, and after all I 
suppose that supper is a more pressing question 
to every human being than anything in past his- 
tory can ever be.” 


A SUNDAY TALK 


1 1 1 


‘‘Yes, I suppose it is,” said Theodore. “At 
any rate, I suppose that all history has really 
grown out of man’s needs, such as supper.” 

“Of course it has. History is glorious in its 
broad effects, but it is very small and petty and 
commonplace in its origin It was the flat-boats 
that won half this continent to our country.” 

“ How, Allan? ” eagerly queried the others. 

“I can’t tell you now. It is supper time. I’ll 
tell you some other day.” 

Then, Joe, who had said nothing hitherto, ven- 
tured the suggestion that “ them other fellows kind 
o’ got hit on the head with a beam an’ lost their 
grip.” 

“ That’s about it,” answered Allan, and the 
party set about getting supper and eating it. 



CHAPTER XII 

TRIED AS BY FIRE 

One evening, not long after the Sunday on 
which Allan talked of the Illinois River and the 
country round about, there was a young moon 
which would set about nine o’clock. The air was 
very warm, as the little party sat upon the deck of 
their boat, and there was a thick haze in the air 
which did not seem to be moist enough to be fog, 
but which as it increased in density, as it did with 
every hour, obscured the young moon, shut out 
the stars, and even made it difficult for the boys to 
make out the shore, while the boat floated very 
slowly down the sluggish stream. For they were 
moving on now, having decided to drop down to 
their next landing-place during the night, in order 
to be ready for business in the early morning. 

They were in a “ wild ” part of the river now — 
that is to say, a part of it where there were no 
farms along the banks, and where the thick-grown 
and now thoroughly parched prairie grass reached 

clear to the margin of the stream on either side. 

1 12 



TRIED AS BY FIRE 


”3 


“ The air is growing so thick,” said Theodore 
presently, “ that we shall have to make a landing, 
boys. So get to the oars. We can’t see to navi- 
gate in this fog.” 

“ ’Taint fog,” said Joe. “ Fog’s wet.” 

“ What is it, Joe? ” 

“ Worse’n fog. It’s prairie afire. It’s smoke.” 

Theodore looked off through the murk to the 
horizon, and saw reason to believe that Joe was 
right in his conjecture. So far from there being 
any extra moisture in the air, such as fog always 
brings, the atmosphere seemed parched to a dis- 
tressing dryness. The lips of all the party felt 
this, while the eyes of all of them were tingling 



8 


PRAIRIE GRASS 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


114 

unpleasantly and there was a pungent smell of 
smoke in all their nostrils. 

As Theodore scanned the horizon, he saw far 
off to the south a glow in the sky, faint at first but 
rapidly increasing until all the atmosphere became 
ruby red if looked at in one direction and a dark 
purple when seen from an opposite point of view. 

“Joe is right, boys,” he said “the prairie’s on 
fire south of us, and in the present condition of 
the grass nothing on earth can stop the flames. 
We must make the north shore as quickly as pos- 
sible. So row for all you’re worth.” 

“Can’t make it,” said Joe. 

“ Why not?” 

“ Bar in the way — that’s all.” 

“ Well, we’ll make the bar then,” said Theodore 
determinedly. “We simply must get as far as 
possible away from the south shore. Row, boys, 
and I’ll steer.” 

By this time the smoke had become so dense 
that it was impossible to see a hundred feet ahead, 
and Theodore steered only by watching the lurid 
light on the south and holding the boat’s course as 
straight as he could away from it. 

Presently the little floating store went aground 
on the bar of which Joe had spoken, and for secur- 
ity Theodore ordered two of the party to carry the 


TRIED AS BY FIRE 


ll 5 

little anchor out for a hundred feet and drop it in 
the shallow water, while he made its line fast to 
the check posts of the boat. 

“ This is terrible,” said Edgar as he returned to 
the boat, wading. “ We’ve at least eight inches of 
water here. What if the boat should go down 
‘ with all on board,’ as the newspapers say? ” 

“ Don’t jest, Ed,” said Theodore very earnestly. 
“ For this is indeed terrible. We may all be 
burned alive or smothered. It isn’t fifty yards to 
the southern bank. The grass is very rank 
there.” 

The fire was still a mile or two away, but its hot 
breath was felt now, in an almost blistering inten- 
sity, while now and then whole acres of flame 
seemed to be caught up on the wings of the wind 
and blown to great distances. Some of these even 
flashed like lightning over the bed of the river 
itself, while others were kindling the grass in new 
places every instant. 

“ It’s a pity the wind has risen,” said Jeannette. 

“ That’s only the fire,” said Allan. “ It heats 
the air and causes it to rise. Then other air 
rushes in to take its place. You see it blows from 
every direction, now from one quarter and now 
from another. I say, Teddy, hadn’t we better get 
to the buckets? ” 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


ii 6 

“ Yes, quick. Throw everything overboard that 
might catch fire on the decks. Then we’ll form a 
line to pass the buckets and keep the decks 
drenched. Joe, shut the door that leads into the 
cabin.” 

But Joe had already taken this precaution, and 
from that moment the three boys, Joe, and Jean- 
nette stood in line dipping water from the river, 
passing the buckets from hand to hand and emp- 
tying them upon the now blistering boards that 
constituted the roof. 

They found it difficult to breathe as they 
worked, for the fire had advanced now to the very 
brink of the stream on its southern shore, and the 
atmosphere was full of stifling smoke, while the 
heat literally blistered their faces. Three or four 
times Jeannette’s calico gown took fire from 
sparks, and it became necessary to throw a bucket 
of water over her. Now and then, too, a fierce 
blast of flame struck the boat and set fire to her 
timbers, so that the utmost efforts of the crew 
were necessary to prevent her destruction. 

Finally there came a wind blast more furious 
than any that had gone before. It seemed liter- 
ally to seize upon the burning prairie, lift it 
bodily up, and carry it i.n acres across the stream 
to a point where fresh fuel awaited it. At the 


TRIED AS BY FIRE 


Il 7 

same moment fire broke out on the little store- 
boat, in a dozen places at once, and the crew were 
instantly compelled to jump overboard, wade for 
some distance, and then crouch down in the shal- 
low water. 

There they sat sweltering, blistering, and saving 
themselves from a terrible death only by contin- 
ually dipping up water and sluicing themselves 
with it. As the fire grew fiercer Jeannette hit 
upon a new device. 

“ Lie down, all of you, and keep only your noses 
out of the water.” 

As the water was only about eight inches deep 
where they sat, this was an entirely practicable 
thing to do, and they all did it. With their bodies 
nearly immersed they had only to care for their 
faces with abundant supplies of water. 

After perhaps an hour of this struggle, the fire 
so far abated its fury for lack of fresh fuel that the 
little party were able to sit erect in the water and 
take account of damage done. The little store- 
boat — the only home they had in the world — was 
completely gone. She had been burned to the 
water’s edge, all the more quickly because in addi- 
tion to the generally inflammable character of her 
cargo, she was at that time carrying a consider- 
able quantity of hams and bacon — taken from 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


1 1 8 

farmers in exchange for goods — the fat of which 
fed the flames fiercely. Nothing was left of the 
boat or cargo except some charred timbers which, 
while burning, had fallen into the water. 

The little company had only themselves to ask 
about now, and inquiry revealed that all of them 
had been painfully burned, but none of them dan- 
gerously, as they confidently believed. All of 
them were suffering with smoke-irritated air pas- 
sages, but they knew that that source of annoy- 
ance would soon pass away, now that its cause 
was removed. 

“ Thank heaven we are all here,” said Edgar, as 
he poured water over his burned head and face, 
“ and that we’re all safe. But how we’re ever to 
get away from here I can’t guess, and of course 
we’re ruined.” 



CHAPTER XIII 

joe’s advice 

Edgar’s statement that “ of course we’re ruined ” 
set all the party to reflecting: in a depressed and 
melancholy way upon their situation. It was bad 
enough. 

There they sat, in water eight inches deep, in 
the middle of a river so completely enshrouded 
in smoke that seeing was impossible, while even 
breathing was difficult. 

Their boat had been destroyed by fire, together 
with all their goods. They would be very hungry 
presently, and many miles of water lay between 
them and the nearest possible food supply. They 
did not know as yet, and for the present they could 
not find out, whether the bar on which they were 
stranded lay in the middle of the river, with deep 
water on both sides, or whether it would be possible 
for them when daylight should come, and the smoke 
clear away somewhat, to wade to the north shore. 

For the present there was nothing to do but sit 
in the water, or stand up with feet submerged, and 

meditate upon their calamities. 

119 



I 20 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


But Jeannette, at least, kept up her courage and 
her cheerfulness and, wise little woman that she 
was, saw the advantage of cheering her comrades 
and making light of the situation. 

“It makes me laugh,” she said presently. 

“Well, I’m glad of that,” said Allan. “I wish 
it moved me in the same way.” 

“ Why don’t you see how ridiculous it is for 
three well-brought up boys and their sister, who 
hasn’t been brought up at all, to be sitting here in 
eight or ten inches of water in the middle of the 
Illinois River at midnight?” 

“ No,” answered Allan, “ it impresses me only 
as a very damp and thoroughly uncomfort- 
able situation, with hopeless ruin at the end of 
it.” 

“But why ruin, Allan?” asked the girl, speak- 
ing seriously now. 

“ Why, our boat and all our goods are lost, 
and ” 

“ But the boat and the goods— the little that was 
left of them — are covered by insurance.” 

“Yes, but after all we’ve left our record books 
to be burned, and so we cannot make out a 
proper claim.” 

Jeannette did not answer for a few moments. 
Then she asked : 


JOE’S ADVICE 


I 2 I 


“ Have we been using good ink in keeping our 
accounts, Theodore ? ” 

“ Yes. The best there is in the world.” 

“ A little water soaking, then, won’t render our 
accounts illegible? ” 

“ Certainly not. But fire will, and of course our 
books were all burned in the boat.” 

Then Jeannette again waited a while before she 
answered. She wished to startle her brothers into 
hopefulness. Finally she said, as quietly as if she 
had been mentioning the fact that the water of the 
Illinois River was wet: 

“ The books were not burned. I have both of 
them inside my gown. They’re sopping wet, but 
we can dry them and the ink is too good to be 
spoiled by water.” 

Instantly all the boys were on their feet, and 
eagerly questioning. 

In answer to their inquiries Jeannette had only 
this to say : 

“ When I saw that the boat was doomed, I re- 
membered what Teddy had told us about the im- 
portance of saving the two little blank books. So 
I took them from the shelf and put them inside 
my gown. It is your good luck, boys, that I have 
escaped with them.” 

“ It’s our good luck that you have escaped, 


122 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


books or no books,” said Theodore, throwing his 
arm around his sister and caressing her. “ You’re 
worth more than all the books in the world and all 
they record.” 

“ That’s nice of you to say, Teddy,” answered 
the girl quickly, “ but you mustn’t try to kiss me. 
Really, my face is too badly burned.” 

And in fact Jeannette had been severely 
burned. Her face was painfully blistered — so 
painfully that for days afterward she presented a 
bloated appearance under which even her brothers 
would scarcely have recognized her if it had not 
been for her gown and her voice. 

But with all her cheerfulness and jollity the lit- 
tle girl was rapidly growing ill. Her head ached, 
her skin burned, and after a while her whole little 
body shook in the rigor of an ague. Do what she 
might for the encouragement of the rest, she could 
not long conceal the fact that she was in the 
throes of one of those malarial fevers which at that 
time were the scourge of the Illinois River country. 

“We must do something for Jeannette,” said 
Theodore, as soon as he understood her condition, 
“ and I want the best brains of every one of you to 
find out what it is best to do. We can’t find our 
way to the shore in this smoke, at least until 
morning, even if we can then. But we must get 


T23 


JOE’S ADVICE 

Jeannette out of the water in some way. She will 
die if she stays in it.” 

Edgar, the quick-witted, responded almost in- 
stantly with a suggestion. 

“You sit down in the water, Teddy. You’re 
the biggest of us. Let A1 sit in your lap. Then 
I’ll sit in Al’s lap and take Jeannette in my arms. 
In that way we’ll keep her out of the water till 
morning at any rate. And when any one of us 
grows too tired to stand it any longer we’ll change. 
I’ll sit on the bottom with you on my lap, and A1 
holding Jeannette. So we’ll shift about and keep 
Jeannette out of the water till morning. Then 
we’ll do something else, whatever we can.” 

The suggestion commended itself instantly; 
and presently the girl, nearly unconscious now 
with the fever, which had quickly followed the 
ague, was held close in the arms of one of her 
brothers, while the other two sat below in order 
to lift her well out of the water. It was a make- 
shift that could not long endure, but at least it an- 
swered their immediate purpose. 

No sooner was the arrangement put in opera- 
tion than poor Joe stripped off his coat — a coarse, 
thick one — and spread it over the suffering girl. 
A moment later the half-witted fellow disappeared 
in the darkness. 


124 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


Within half an hour he reappeared out of the 
gloom, seized upon Jeannette, taking her from the 
arms of one of her brothers, and waded off with 
her, the boys following. They soon came to a 
structure which Joe, with his giant strength, had 
built out of the charred timbers of the burned 
store-boat. It rose a foot or two out of the water, 
and Joe had covered it with the charred remains 
of such dry goods as had fallen half burned into 
the water — bolts of ginghams, calicoes, merinoes, 
etc. These he had unrolled and “ mussed up,” as 
he phrased it, so as to make a fairly soft couch for 
the girl, and a tolerably dry one. Tenderly plac- 
ing her upon it, he proceeded next to bring some 
water-soaked fabrics, saddle blankets, and the like, 
with which to cover her. 

Obviously poor Joe had managed somehow un- 
der stress of necessity to control his disordered 
mind and compel it to act. His devotion to Jean- 
nette was the supreme impulse of his nature, and 
it had compelled him to think clearly and to act 
wisely for a little time. 

Seeing what he had done, the boys, one after 
another, took his hand, each saying “ thank you, 
Joe!” 

And Joe seemed satisfied. 



CHAPTER XIV 

“ fevernager” and other things 

When morning came it was still too murky to 
see either shore, but at any rate Jeannette’s fever 
had passed away and that was a great relief. 

“ It will come back again,” said Theodore, “but 
probably not until the day after to-morrow. In 
the mean while we must get to one shore or the 
other and secure a doctor if we have to walk 
twenty miles to fetch him.” 

“We must all get some food, too,” said Edgar. 
“ Its vitally important for all of us, but especially 
so for Jeannette. Now the first problem is to get 
ashore.” 

“No, the first problem,” interrupted Allan, “is 
to find the shore. Joe says, as well as he can say 
anything, that this bar we’re on lies in the middle 
of the river, with deep water on either side. I had 
hoped it might be a shore bar, from which we 
could wade to the northern bank. But it isn’t. 
So I’m going to the southern bank this morning.” 

“ How?” 

“ By swimming.” 


125 


126 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ But you can’t see the bank.” 

“ No, I know I can’t. But I’m going to set out 
swimming toward it, and keep on swimming till I 
strike shoal water somewhere. As the distance 
straight across is only about fifty yards or so, I’ll 
do that easily. Even if I get out of my course I’ll 
strike shore somewhere, and I’m good for a 
several miles’ swim. Besides, there ought to be 
considerable current between this bar and the 
shore, and where there’s a current a swimmer can 
always tell which way it runs. I’ll cross it and go 
down the river. I’ll get a skiff and I’ll come back 
for all the rest of you. In the mean while keep 
Jeannette out of the water, and spare yourselves, 
too, boys. We don’t want the whole party to 
come down with what our captain calls ‘ fevern- 
ager.’ So here goes ! ” 

With that the resolute boy plunged into the 
stream and struck out for the entirely smoke-hid- 
den southern shore. 

Meanwhile the others supposed that there was 
nothing for them to do but wait for Allan’s return. 
They had not reckoned upon Joe’s awakened sa- 
gacity. Soon after Allan swam away, Joe waded 
over to the anchor, and by inspection found out 
how much of its rope was left. Then he went 
back to Jeannette’s bed, and carefully withdrew a 


“FEVERNAGER” 


127 

number of the half-burned planks from it, taking 
pains not to let her resting place sink into the 
water. Next he carried these planks to deeper 
water and put them into position, making a sort of 
raft of them, which he made fast to the anchor 
rope. Then he tenderly lifted Jeannette from the 
couch he had made for her and carried her to a 
new one which he had prepared on his raft. That 
done he invoked the help of the boys and towed 
the raft against the current — for on the bar there 
was a considerable current — to a point where he 
thought the flow of the water might drive it to- 
ward shore. Then he turned to the boys and said 
in his broken way: 

“Swim ashore. Tow the raft. Find some- 
thing to eat. Are you ready? That’s all.” 

The boys promptly recognized the wisdom of 
Joe’s suggestion. They must have something to 
eat, for they were fairly famished now, and espe- 
cially they must have a doctor and medicine and 
proper food for Jeannette. The only question 
was that of possibility. 

“Can we push the raft ashore?” one of them 
asked. 

For answer Joe said: 

“ There’s a point down there. Big eddy above 
it. That’s all.” 


128 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


They understood. There was a little cape on 
the south shore just below, and above it the inter- 
rupted waters swirled around in an eddy. If they 
could push their raft far enough toward the shore 
to have it caught in the eddy before passing the 
point, they might easily make a landing. 

They bravely set out to accomplish this. The 
smoke enveloped everything, so that they could 
not see more than a dozen yards in front of 
them ; but with the feeling of a cross current to 
guide them, they managed to push the raft with 
Jeannette on it into the big eddy. The rest was 
simple enough, and before noon they had made a 
landing, set up a shelter for Jeannette, made of 
the boards which had constituted her raft, and 
built a fire of such small drift-wood as they could 
find. 

Then Joe’s awakened intelligence took com- 
mand. He had tenderly guarded the shotgun 
and the ammunition throughout all these adven- 
tures. 

“I’ll get some meat,” he said. “You boys try 
for bread. That’s all.” 

So it was arranged that while Joe went out on 
the prairie in search of game, Theodore and Ed- 
gar should go the one up and the other down the 
river bank in search of a farmhouse where a sup- 


“ FEVERNAGER ” 129 

ply of bread, or potatoes, or as a last resort raw 
corn, might be procured. 

About five o’clock Theodore returned with no 
bread but with twenty-five ears of corn, too ripe 
to be eaten as green corn, and yet not ripe enough 
to be put through a mill. 

‘‘That’s good,” said Joe, who had already re- 
turned with some game. “ It’s ‘ new corn,’ an’ 
there ain’t anything better.” 

“ But how are we to use it, Joe? ” 

“ Grate it an’ make the best bread you ever 
saw,” answered the man, whose wits seemed to 
have come back to him in some degree under the 
stress of circumstances. 

“ But we haven’t any grater,” said the boy. 

“ Leave it to Joe; that’s all,” answered the man. 

A little later Edgar came back. He had a ham 
and a strip of bacon with him, purchased of an 
excessively poor farmer and paid for out of such 
money as he had happened to carry in his pocket. 

Then the little company quickened the drift- 
wood fire and set to work to get supper. Joe had 
searched the shore and found there two large 
bowlders. Between these he pounded the half- 
ripened corn into a pulp, which he made into 
cakes and baked in the hot ashes of the fire. 

“ It needs salt very badly,” said Ed, “but a bit 
9 


I 3° 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


of ham with each slice will remedy that. And by 
the way, if it had a little salt in it it would really 
be the best bread I ever tasted.” 

Ed was quite right. The bread made of grated, 
half-ripened corn is a luxury which only a few 
civilized people are ever permitted to taste. Even 
Jeannette, temporarily free from her malarial 
fever, ate a little of it and was the better for do- 
ing so. 

But the hours passed and Allan did not return. 
Nothing had been heard of him of course since he 
had plunged into the river in the early morning 
with his clothes and shoes on, to swim ashore and 
go in search of a physician. Hour after hour the 
boys waited for him until it was ten o’clock at 
night, but still he did not come. At last it oc- 
curred to Jeannette that he might be searching for 
them out upon the bar where he had left them in 
the morning. There had been no thought at that 
time of going ashore, “and naturally,” Jeannette 
explained, “he will come back in a skiff with a 
doctor and try to find us out there.” 

“ That is true,” said Theodore, “ and there is 
only one thing to do. We can’t get out to the 
bar, but we can give Allan notice that we are here 
on the shore. Our fire is built behind a little 
earth-bank so that it can’t be seen from the bar. 


“ FEVERNAGER” 13 1 

We must move it and make it so great a bonfire 
as to attract his attention.” 

It was no sooner said than done. The coals of 
the fire were taken out to the very edge of the 
shore, and there the boys piled upon it everything 
of a combustible nature they could find. There 
was very little drift-wood to be found — almost 
none at all in fact. The prairie grass had been 
completely swept away, and there were no dry 
corn-stalks at that season within miles up or down 
the river. So the fire was a very feeble one at 
best, which showed itself only a little way through 
the murky night. 

“ Burn my shelter,” commanded Jeannette. 
“ Throw all these planks upon the fire and make a 
big blaze of it.” 

“No, we mustn’t do that,” said Edgar. “It 
won’t do to leave you exposed under the bare sky 
for another night.” 

“ But Allan must be found,” answered the en- 
thusiastic girl. “ It doesn’t matter about me. 
Burn the planks, I tell you. If you don’t, I’ll have 
to carry them to the fire myself, and really, boys, 
I’m feeling very weak.” 

Then it was that Joe rose to the occasion. 

“ Never mind the fire,” he said. “ I’ll tend to it. 
That’s all.” 


1 3 2 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


Immediately he went to the water’s edge and 
fired his shotgun, one barrel after the other. 
Then he reloaded and fired again in the same 
way. After a while he fired both barrels for the 
third time, and presently out of the murk there 
came a skiff with Allan at the oars and a doctor in 
the stern. Joe’s shots had been understood, and 
the rescue party which had been searching the 
bar, had come to the shore in answer to them. 

Poor Allan was completely exhausted. After 
swimming ashore in the morning he had walked 
a dozen miles in his wet clothes, ending his jour- 
ney with an ague upon him which rendered even 
speech difficult. Then with the doctor and a sup- 
ply of provisions, blankets, and other necessaries, 
he had rowed back over a dozen miles of river. 
He had waded in the darkness all over the bar, in 
spite of his enfeebled condition, in search of the 
party. Finally Joe’s shots, delivered in a fashion 
that suggested signaling, had attracted his atten- 
tion just at the moment when he was about to 
abandon his search, in the conviction that some 
wandering steamboat had taken the party off the 
bar. 

There were glad greetings and congratulations 
all around of course. In the mean while the little 
old doctor — for he was old and very little — had set 


“ FEVERNAGER 


i33 


Jeannette and Allan taking heroic doses of calo- 
mel and quinine, and had directed the rest of the 
party to set to work getting a second supper 
ready. Allan had brought a supply of coffee and 
bread, a coffee-pot, and a frying pan, and it was 
the doctor’s dictum that “ in these cases medicine 
is desirable, but full feeding is even more essen- 
tial.” Fortunately Joe’s skill with the gun had 
provided an abundance of game, and under the 
doctor’s orders the whole party ate freely of it 
before going to sleep. 

It was still very warm of course — the blanket of 
hot smoke that even yet lay thick like a pall over 
the entire country, insured that — and the doctor 
hoped, by the free use of food and medicine, to 
prevent a recurrence of the agues of the two 
who had been stricken. 

“ There is nothing like taking these cases in 
time,” he said, “and following them up. Fortu- 
nately we’ve got these two in time, and we’ll follow 
them up. You’d better get to sleep, young wom- 
an” — this to Jeannette — “for before to-morrow 
noon I’m going to make your head ache and your 
ears roar with quinine as you never knew them to 
ache and roar before. We’re simply going to nip 
this thing in the bud. So off with you to bed. 
By the way, have you got any bed?” 


i34 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ IVe brought half a dozen pairs of blankets in 
the skiff," responded Allan. “ It was the best I 
could do in the village down there." 

“And a mighty good best it was," said the doc- 
tor. “ Hot as it is, you people have need to sleep 
under blankets, and plenty of them." 

“ By the way, Ted," said Allan aside to Theo- 
dore after a little, “ I had to get all these things on 
credit. I told these people we’d stop on the way 
down the river and you’d give them a check on 
St. Louis. They were very kind and good about 
it. They had heard our story and they seemed 
anxious to do all they could for us, quite regard- 
less of our ability or inability to pay." 

“That’s always the way with country people, 
and especially with people in a sparsely settled 
new country. They are always generously ready 
to do anything they can for anybody in distress, at 
whatever sacrifice to themselves." 

“ I suppose," said Edgar, who was disposed to 
hunt for reasons and to philosophize concerning 
things, “ I suppose that is in part because people 
living in newly settled countries feel a good deal 
dependent upon their neighbors in case of illness, 
or death, or disaster. People who feel in that way 
are apt to be ready with the help they themselves 
are likely to need at any time." 


“ FEVERNAGER” 


J 35 


'‘Well, yes,” said Theodore, “that is one reason 
of course. But there is a better one. Human 
nature is kindly, compassionate, and instinctively 
helpful. In the country, and especially in new 
countries, the instinct of helpfulness has not been 
put to death by imposition. In cities there are all 
sorts of fraudulent beggars imposing upon chari- 
table impulse, and very naturally people don’t like 
to be imposed upon and cheated. They grow 
hardened and skeptical after a while and refuse to 
respond to appeals lest they be swindled. The 
country people have no such experience to harden 
them, and so their naturally humane instincts 
have free play.” 

“ Well, now, if you two fellows have finished 
your discussion of human motives,” said Allan, “ I 
want to suggest that as we are not beggars, we are 
going to pay for everything we have got from these 
people — from the skiff and the blankets to the 
doctor’s services. And we are going to pay full 
price in every case. So I want to ask you, Theo- 
dore, how much money we have in the bank at 
St. Louis.” 

“ Plenty to meet all obligations,” responded the 
older boy, “ and to build and stock a new store- 
boat quite independently of what we shall get in 
insurance money on the old one and her cargo. 


136 RUNNING THE RIVER 

But we shall not have to draw upon that to meet 
these bills. Of course we’re going to pay full 
price for everything, and we’re going to pay in 
cash too. You remember how Jeannette saved 
the invoice and sales books. Well, she saved the 
cash on hand in the same way. I have more than 
three hundred dollars with me now, in rather wet 
bank bills which she had the sagacity to stuff into 
her stockings when she saw the danger of the 

store-boat’s burning. So we’ll pay ” 

“ I say, fellows,” interrupted Edgar, “ why 
shouldn’t we sing out ‘ hoop la ’ for Jeannette? ” 

“ Oh, because it would wake her up.” 

“Well, then, under our breath let’s all say 
‘ Hoop la for Jeannette ! ’ She’s a girl to be proud 
of, a partner worth having, a sister who deserves 
all we can give her of gratitude.” 

“We’ll shake hands on that,” said Theodore. 
Then Joe rose and offered his hand, seeming to 
understand the tribute. The boys were deeply 
touched by his affection for their sister, and they 
grasped his hand with a warmth that seemed to 
make him understand. 


<D 

CHAPTER XV 

AN ERRAND OF MERCY 

The little doctor was what is called a “heroic 
practitioner.” Doctors had to be such in deal- 
ing with the violent fevers of that time and 
country. 

“ You see,” he said next morning, “ when one of 
these fevers gets hold of you, it’s just a question 
whether you kill the fever or the fever kills you. 
There’s no time to waste and there’s no use fool- 
ing. Quinine will cure the ‘ fevernager ’ every 
time, if you take it while the ‘ fevernager ’ is 
young. But if you let it grow up nothing will kill 
it. So these two youngsters here have simply got 
to take all the quinine they can hold to-day.” 

The treatment proved effective. When the 
time came for the return of their ague, both Jean- 
nette and Allan had racking headaches and roar- 
ing ears, but their systems were too well fortified 
with quinine to permit a return of the paroxysms. 

The good doctor had stayed with them until this 
137 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


138 

was accomplished, and he was satisfied that they 
had no need of further treatment. 

Then Theodore volunteered to take him back 
to the village down the river where he lived. 

“I’ll row you down there, doctor,” he said. 
“ I’ll settle all our bills, buy some further supplies, 
and then row back. We’ll wait here for the 
Statesman s next down trip.” 

The Statesman was a very small, and very light- 
draught stern-wheel steamboat that was alone 
navigating the river at the very low stage of water 
then prevailing. 

“You’ll never see the Statesman again, my boy,” 
responded the doctor. 

“ But why not? ” 

“ She was burned when the prairie got fire.” 

“ How did you hear? ” 

“ The three men of her crew who escaped went 
down the river in the yawl the very day you sum- 
moned me here.” 

“You mean that everybody else on board per- 
ished ? ” 

“Yes. Just that. Possibly some of them got 
ashore and will turn up after a while, but it isn’t 
likely. The boat was a bundle of kindling wood, 
you know. The moment fire struck her she’d be 
ablaze from stem to stern. Anyhow the three 


AN ERRAND OF MERCY 


l 39 


who went down the river in the yawl were certain 
that no one else escaped. It’s a pity they did — or 
one of them at least.” 

“ How do you mean it’s a pity? ” 

“ Why, one of them was the second mate, Billy 
Patterson, the most brutal wild beast that ever ran 
the river.” 

“ That’s the fellow that struck poor Joe, boys,” 
said Edgar. 

“ Yes, and it would be just like him to abandon 
everybody else and save himself, the coward!” 
answered Theodore. “ How far up the river did 
the boat burn, doctor? ” 

“ About ten or twelve miles.” 

“ Boys, we’ll take a supply of blankets and pro- 
visions and go up the river to the scene of the dis- 
aster. There may be starving people somewhere 
along the shore up there. Fortunately we’ve 
plenty of money with which to buy supplies. 
Come, doctor, we must hurry. Ed and I will 
take you home in the skiff. Then we’ll buy an- 
other skiff and load both with provisions and 
blankets. Will you come back with us? Your 
services may be badly needed, and your time shall 
be paid for.” 

“ I’ll come back with you, you may be sure, but 
there’ll be a fight in the party if you say another 


140 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


thing about paying me for going on an errand of 
mercy. Now listen. It has already been four 
days and more since the Statesman was burned. 
If there are any parties from her marooned up the 
river they’ve already suffered terribly and can’t 
very well wait longer. We’ve one big skiff here. 
Why not start out right now up the river, you and 
I? Allan is too weak. Let him stay here and 
keep camp with little Miss Jeannette, while Ed 
and Joe walk down the river to the village, get an- 
other skiff and a lot of supplies, and bring them 
back here. We’ll make this the rendezvous, and 
you and I will bring here anybody we may find 
up the river needing rescue.” 

“ Excellent ! ” exclaimed Theodore. “ Here, Ed- 
gar, take some money with you ” 

“ What for ! ” asked the doctor. 

“ Why, to pay for the things with.” 

“Yes, and get themselves lynched for their 
pains. For that’s just what the people down there 
will do to them if they offer to pay for anything in 
a case like this. They’ll get everything they want 
and can start back with a full load in half an hour 
after they get to the town.” 

“ All right ! ” cried Edgar, eager to be active 
again. “Come on, Joe! We’re good for a dozen- 
mile trot, aren’t we? We’ll do it in two or three 


AN ERRAND OF MERCY 


Hi 

hours, and we’ll be back here with the supplies 
long before you two get back with any of the res- 
cued. For I don’t believe everybody on the boat 
perished. It isn’t probable to begin with, and be- 
sides that, it was Billy Patterson who said it, and 
that’s enough to make me disbelieve it.” 

“ Me, too,” shouted Allan, as Edgar and Joe set 
off at a dog trot down the bank. 

“ It’s curious,” said the doctor, “ that I didn’t 
think of doubting Billy Patterson’s statement un- 
til you boys questioned it. Neither did anybody 
else in the town. And yet, now that I think of it, 
it is almost certain that he lied, and that some of 
the people were left up there to starve. Come. 
Let us be off.” 

The skiff in which Theodore and the doctor 
traveled was large, but very light, and she moved 
rapidly through the water. She was built after the 
manner of all Western river skiffs, with an entire- 
ly flat bottom, sloping upward as it neared the 
stern, to leave room for a “skeg” — a piece of 
board cut into a long triangle and fixed to the 
bottom in lieu of a keel, as a means of keeping the 
boat straight upon her course. 

Even with the doctor and Theodore in her, and 
with perhaps a hundred and fifty pounds of cargo 
in the shape of provisions, blankets, and the doc- 


142 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


tor’s appliances, the skiff did not draw more than 
an inch and a half of water, so that in cruising up 
the river and searching the shores the boatmen 
were able to take direct courses, quite regardless 
of bars and shoal water. 

The smoke of the prairie fire was slowly lifting 
now and drifting away on the wings of the wind, 
so that Theodore and his companion were able 
to see both shores as they rowed up the river, 
and, by a little swinging from one side to the 
other, to search both banks carefully. With 
the river so low as it was, there was almost no 
current except in short spaces here and there, 
and so it required scarcely more effort to row up 
stream than to propel a skiff in the opposite di- 
rection. 

In the course of two hours or so, while the day 
was still young, they came upon what remained of 
the steamboat, stranded upon a bar just as their 
store-boat had been. Rowing to it they found 
there a shocking scene of distress. There were 
a dozen or twenty people there — all of them more 
or less burned, and some of them very severely so 
— huddled together upon a sort of raft which they 
had painfully constructed out of the remains of 
the steamboat. 

There was very little water on the bar — just 


AN ERRAND OF MERCY 


H3 

enough to render the situation uncomfortable and 
unhealthful. But for lack of capable direction 
these people had built their raft upon the wrong 
side of the ruins of the steamboat — the bar side 
instead of the deeper water side. The result was 
that the raft lay hard and fast upon the sand bar, 
and could not float down the stream as the poor 
creatures had hoped that it might. 

They were utterly exhausted now with their 
burns, their hard work in the water, their exposure 
to malaria, and their utter lack of food for now 
nearly a hundred hours. A few of them were 
dead. Others were unconscious from fever. The 
rest had no strength left and had simply resigned 
themselves to their fate. They had failed in their 
endeavors to rescue themselves, and were too far 
gone to try further. 

“ These people can’t even help us to help them,” 
said the doctor, grasping the situation at once. 
“ We must do everything ourselves. First of all is 
food. What have we got?” 

Theodore hastily catalogued their supplies. 
When he mentioned half a dozen rabbits as a part 
of them the doctor cried out: “ That’s good. We 
can make broth of them. But meanwhile we 
must make some cornmeal gruel. You see solid 
food would be fatal to most of these people in 


1 44 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


their present condition. How can we get a fire, 
and where ? ” 

“ I’ll make one here on the raft, and I’ll keep 
the raft wet all around it. We’ve got a kettle and 
a stew-pan here.” 

There were tools lying about — tools taken from 
the steamboat and used in the construction of the 
raft. Using some of these Theodore quickly split 
up some bits of board, and after several failures 
succeeded in starting a fire with the matches 
which he carried in a water-proof case in one of his 
pockets. Matches were very scarce and costly 
even in cities half a century ago, and people gene- 
rally used them sparingly or not at all. A box 
containing fifty matches at that time was sold in 
the shops for ten cents. A box containing five 
hundred or even a thousand can now be bought 
for five cents or less. 

But upon starting out on the Illinois River 
expedition Theodore had realized the absolute 
necessity of having always at hand the means of 
getting fire. So in addition to the little stock of 
firemakers that the store-boat carried for sale, 
Theodore had made each member of the party 
provide himself with a water-tight box filled with 
matches. 

The poor, ill, starved people were complainingly 


AN ERRAND OF MERCY 


H5 

calling for assistance while Theodore was getting 
the fire going and the doctor was making gruel 
for them. 

“ Don’t heed them,” said the doctor. “ They 
can’t help their querulousness, and we mustn’t 
mind it. We’re only to go on and do the best we 
can for them.” 

In a little while some gruel was ready, and the 
doctor began feeding it a little at a time to the 
starving ones, while Theodore set his rabbits to 
stewing on the fire, after chopping them to bits 
with the hatchet. Then the cry for food became 
more clamorous than ever. Starving people come 
after a while to a condition in which they do 
not care for food. But as soon as they swallow 
a little their appetites clamorously revive. So the 
doctor’s gruel served only to increase the demand 
for food, and Theodore had to use something like 
force to prevent the men of the party from snatch- 
ing pieces of the rabbit out of the kettle and 
devouring them half cooked. But Theodore — six 
feet high, strong armed and broad shouldered — 
had a commanding presence, and his tone was 
very peremptory as he said : 

“ We’ll feed you — all of you — as fast as the doc- 
tor thinks best. If any man among you lays 
hands on the kettle I’ll thrash him. Go back and 

IO 


146 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


sit down or lie down. We are doing our best for 
you, and you must leave it to us to decide what is 
best.” 

As he spoke the stalwart boy advanced menac- 
ingly upon the three steamboat hands who consti- 
tuted the attacking party, and in their weakness 
they gave way before him, abandoning their pur- 
pose. 

Then the doctor began doling out the broth, 
very thin as yet, but all the better suited to his 
purpose on that account. Theodore added water 
from time to time to the pot’s contents, and as the 
meat began giving off its juices the broth became 
steadily stronger and more nutritious. Under in- 
fluence of it the stranded people grew better nat- 
ured and more amenable to authority. 

“ But there isn’t a man among them,” said the 
doctor, “ able to do a thing in the way of work. 
How are we ever to get them away from here? ” 

“We must build a raft in the deeper water on 
the other side of the wreck,” answered Theodore. 
“ It will float there, and we’ll manage somehow to 
tow it down stream.” 

“ But you and I can’t build it by ourselves, and 
not one of these people has strength enough left 
to help ” 

“You don’t know my brothers, doctor. Edgar 


AN ERRAND OF MERCY 


47 


and Joe will be back at the camp by three o’clock 
this afternoon. How long do you suppose Edgar 
and Allan will remain there after they find out 
from our continued absence that there is work to 
be done up here? You can rest easy. We’ve 
only to keep up a fire so that they can find us, and 
they’ll be here before midnight. I shouldn’t be 
surprised to find Jeannette pulling an oar either.” 

“ They’re the right sort, all of them,” said the 
doctor. “ I hadn’t thought of their coming, and 
they’ll bring Joe of course.” 

“ That all depends on whether Jeannette comes 
or not. He is her knight-errant. Wherever she 
wants him to go he will go, and if she comes you 
will find him with her. I hope she will come, for 
she can do much among these women and chil- 
dren, and Joe’s strength and skill will go far to 
help us in building the raft.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


REINFORCEMENTS 

The work of rescue which Theodore and the 
doctor had undertaken was beset by many difficul- 
ties. In the first place — except for the rabbits, 
whose broth made almost perfect food for people 
weakened by starvation — their supplies were not 
of a kind suited to that purpose. They had some 
hams, some bacon and some corn meal, but no 
fresh meat. It was a problem, the doctor said, “ to 
feed these people back to life without killing them 
in the process.’' 

For a time he resolutely forbade any food 
except the gruel and the broth. Then a new 
thought occurred to him. 

“ Put a handful or two of corn meal into the 
broth, Theodore. Sift it in slowly with your fin- 
gers and stir the mixture all the time, so that the 
meal may not form in lumps. They’ll digest the 
mixture better and it will nourish them more be- 
cause of the presence of the starchy element.” 

Theodore carefully followed directions, and after 
the doctor had administered small quantities of 


REINFORCEMENTS 


149 

the bettered and thickened soup the sufferers 
showed some improvement. 

Some of them went to sleep and the doctor let 
them sleep. “ It’s the very best thing that could 
happen to them,” he said. 

Some were so far weakened by starvation that 
they could scarcely digest food at all, and these 
were the most difficult of all for the doctor to deal 
with. Curiously enough these weakest ones were 
not the women and children, but the great hulk- 
ing firemen and deck hands. Theodore, observ- 
ing the fact, asked the doctor for an explanation. 

“ It’s apt to be so always,” answered the physi- 
cian. “ These giants of physical strength have far 
less capacity of endurance than more highly re- 
fined people. It’s curious, but it’s a fact. Every 
military man knows it. That’s why what they 
call ‘ dandy regiments ’ — regiments composed of 
men from the higher walks of life — so often mani- 
fest an endurance under hard fighting, hard 
marching, and severe starvation which regiments 
made up of stevedores, wharf rats, and the like, 
can’t begin to match. Napoleon said, you know, 
that in the endurance of troops, ‘ the moral is to 
the physical as ten to one,’ and it is so with people 
everywhere. Education, refinement, pride, and, 
above all, moral purpose, count for vastly more 


iso 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


than mere physical strength when it comes to a 
question of endurance.” 

“ I suppose it’s because the educated man, who 
has a conscience and a pride to support him, draws 
on those resources after his merely physical 
strength is exhausted, while the man who has 
nothing but physical strength is completely 
bankrupt the moment he finds his strength 
gone.” 

“ That’s about it. I once talked with old Gen- 
eral Coffee — Jackson’s best lieutenant — who so 
greatly distinguished himself as a fighter of the 
Indians and British in the South. He told me 
that on a long forced march he always depended 
upon what he called 1 the men with sweethearts at 
home ’ — the nervous men, the men of some educa- 
tion, the men who had family pride and a reputa- 
tion at home to consider, rather than upon the 
outcasts and wanderers who had physical strength 
and nothing else to sustain them. Now I want a 
little of your rabbit — I don’t mean the broth, but 
the meat itself — for some patients who can stand 
it, I think. The meat must be stewed to frag- 
ments by this time.” 

“ It is stewed to shreds and ravelings,” answered 
Theodore. 

“ So much the better.” 


REINFORCEMENTS 


iSi 

Among the dead were the captain of the boat 
and the first mate. The clerk seemed terribly ex- 
hausted, and in examining him the doctor discov- 
ered that he was severely wounded also. He re- 
ported the fact to Theodore, and when the man 
had recovered sufficiently to talk a little, the two 
questioned him. 

“It was Billy Patterson that did it,” he said. 
“ When I saw that the boat was gone I took all 
the money in the clerk’s office, meaning to save it 
for the owners. I had it in a wad in my hands 
when Patterson came up with his two fellows, and 
demanded it and knocked me down because I re- 
fused. That’s the last I remember for a while, 
and when I came to I found that Patterson had 
siezed the yawl and gone off down the river, leav- 
ing the rest of us to take whatever might come. 
The money was all gone and all the dead were 
robbed. I suppose he took it all. Anyhow, with 
the yawl, if he hadn’t taken it away, we might all 
have got ashore and found help. But he ran 
away with it and it was the only boat we had. 
That’s all I can say now. He’s a robber of the 
dead and the dying.” 

“As soon as possible,” said Theodore, “we 
must get a message down the river. That brute 
Billy Patterson must be caught. We’ll find him 


I 5 2 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


somewhere down the river. The river’s the only 
home he has.” 

It was growing dark now and the doctor’s pa- 
tients were all in as good condition as could be 
hoped for within so short a time. But a fire must 
be kept going by way of indicating the presence 
of the party to the others when they should come 
up the river, as Theodore confidently expected 
them to do. So Theodore set himself to work to 
provide for that. The bar upon which the party 
was stranded was fortunately covered with bowl- 
ders of every size, from that of a man’s hat crown 
down to the smallest pebbles. So, selecting a spot 
where the water was only a few inches deep, and 
one from which a fire might be easily seen at 
night from far down the river, Theodore gathered 
bowlders and piled them there till he had created 
an artificial island five or six feet in diameter, and 
perhaps two feet above the level of the water. To 
this he transferred his fire, and as the raft and the 
half-consumed timbers of the steamboat furnished 
plenty of combustible material he managed to 
keep up a bonfire of large dimensions. 

The glare of the fire so far blinded him and the 
doctor that they could not see twenty yards into 
the darkness that overspread the face of the river. 

“ But we’ve no need to sec,” Theodore said. 


REINFORCEMENTS 


*53 

“If the others see the fire they will come to us, 
and that’s all we want.” 

The event fulfilled his prediction. About nine 
o’clock four skiffs came out of the darkness into 
the circle of light made by the fire. Each was 
loaded with blankets, quilts, old clothes, and pro- 
visions. In one Edgar and Joe were at the oars, 
with Jeannette for passenger at the stern. In an- 
other came Allan with three of the villagers, and 
in each of the two others there were three young 
men eager and willing to help. 

“What provisions did you bring?” eagerly 
asked the doctor the moment Edgar stepped upon 
the raft. For the doctor’s supply of rabbit stew 
was exhausted, and he gravely dreaded the conse- 
quence of offering a salt meat diet to people with 
digestions enfeebled by long starvation. 

“ A quarter of beef, a sheep killed and dressed 
yesterday, some rice, sugar, potatoes, tea and cof- 
fee,” Edgar answered. “ Also some salt, half a 
dozen pumpkins, some new corn, some flour, a 
bushel of harvest apples, and a lot of corn meal.” 

“ Good ! good ! good ! ” exclaimed the doctor. 
“ Now we shall pull them all through. Several of 
these people,” addressing Theodore, “ need solid 
food, but I was afraid to give them broiled ham or 
bacon, though those are things fit for the gods if 


*54 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


the gods don’t happen to be in a condition of star- 
vation. Now we can make soups for the weakest 
and give broiled beef and mush and stewed apples 
to the stronger ones.” 

The starved people were still in a very preca- 
rious condition. For more than four days and 
nights they had had no food at all, and after that 
only such as Theodore and the doctor had allowed 
them since their arrival a little before noon of that 
day. They were still starving in fact, and all the 
more painfully so because of their night and day 
exposure in the open air and the water. For a 
man snugly ensconced in bed and under plenty of 
blankets can endure hunger much longer than one 
can who is thinly clad and compelled night and 
day to suffer exposure to the open air. The one 
exposed wastes strength and tissue far more rapid- 
ly than does the one bedded and blanketed. 

So the first thing the doctor did was to ask for 
Jeannette, intending to set her to work blanketing 
his patients with the quilts, coverlets, bed spreads, 
comforters, and the like which the good people of 
the town down the river had contributed in lavish 
abundance, and which the boys had brought in the 
skiffs. But Jeannette was for the moment missing, 
and the doctor soon discovered that the wise little 
woman was already busy doing precisely the thing 


REINFORCEMENTS 


J 5S 

he wanted done, while he had been thinking about 
it. She had enlisted Joe’s services as a carrier of 
great burdens ot bed clothes on his stalwart shoul- 
ders, and she had comfortably covered every one 
of the sufferers, taking pains herself to “ tuck in ” 
the coverlets in each case. “Tucking in means 
so much to a sick person,” she explained. “ It’s 
worth almost as much as an extra blanket some- 
times.” 

“ I should say so ! ” said the doctor, “ particular- 
ly when the tucking in is done by such tenderly 
loving hands as yours.” 

Jeannette heeded not the compliment. She was 
too intent upon her ministry of mercy to think of 
herself. 

“ Now, doctor,” she said, “what cooking do you 
want done? You know I’m a good cook, and I’m 
really afraid Theodore isn’t. Anyhow, I think he 
puts his rabbits into hot water to stew, when he 
ought to have used cold water.” 

“That’s true,” answered her brother, “but I 
thought that was right.” 

“ Of course you did ; that’s the boy of it. But 
it’s all wrong. If you want to boil a piece of meat 
for the sake of the meat, you put it into hot water 
of course. That quickly cooks the outside and 
keeps the juices of the meat just where you want 


1 56 RUNNING THE RIVER 

them — inside the meat. But if you’re making a 
soup or a broth, why of course you want the juices 
in the broth and not in the meat. So you use 
cold water to extract them. However, I haven’t 
time now to teach you how to cook. What do 
you want prepared for your patients, doctor? ” 

“ A pot of tea first. A pot of coffee next. But 
have you the utensils?” 

“ Yes, some good woman down in the town 
thought of that and she seems to have emptied her 
kitchen closet into the skiffs. Go on, doctor.” 

But evenw T hile she talked Jeannette was at work 
and there was a confident promise on the fire that 
both coffee and tea should soon be ready in abun- 
dant supply. 

“Well, we shall need some more soup. The 
beef’s the best thing to make it of. Here, Char- 
ley,” addressing one of the village men who had 
come in the boats; “you’re a butcher. Cut off 
some of the tougher lean meat and chop it up for 
soup. You know how.” 

Then the doctor paused a moment, after which 
he said, again addressing the villager: 

“ Cut four or five bits from the tenderloin. I 
see it’s a hind quarter you’ve brought ; and Miss 
Jeannette will broil them. Several of the sick 
people are well enough now to eat broiled steak 


REINFORCEMENTS 


57 


sparingly.” The doctor always said “ Miss Jean- 
nette” when speaking to others, but he himself 
addressed her as Jeannette without any prefix. 
The doctor was a polished gentleman of the old 
school. 

Then the doctor paused again before saying: 

'‘And by the way, Jeannette, your brother 
Theodore and I have had a rather hard day, and 
now that I come to think of it, neither of us has 
tasted food since our six o’clock breakfast this 
morning. As it is now after ten o’clock at night, 
perhaps ” 

“ Cut me some loin chops from the sheep, Char- 
ley, please,” broke in the girl, addressing the man 
by the only name she had heard. Then to the 
doctor she added: “You and Teddy are to go 
about your business for twenty minutes, doctor. 
Then you are both to come back here for your 
sentence, whatever it may be. But first, which do 
you prefer doctor, tea or coffee ? ” 

“ Coffee , you little witch, of course. We’re 
grown men, and besides you’ve been getting out 
the coffee even while pretending to inquire our 
preference.” 

Then the doctor, who was a classical scholar and 
was now beginning to grow old, mumbled some- 
thing in Latin, a quotation from Virgil, suggesting 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


158 

that a woman is an exceedingly variable and un- 
certain sort of person to deal with. 

“ All the same/’ he said to Theodore, “ I wish I 
had just such a daughter as Jeannette is to com- 
fort my declining years.” 

“ I shall not say thank you, doctor, for your good 
opinion of Jeannette,” answered Theodore. 

“ No, don’t. It is thanks enough just to know 
her.” 

“ I think so,” said the boy, whose pride in his 
sister, in view of the way in which she was bearing 
her part in this emergency in spite of her recent 
illness, was very great. 

“ Let me tell you, young man,” said the doctor 
with a distinctly fatherly tone, “that sister of 
yours is only a child yet — fourteen or fifteen years 
old I suppose — but she’s altogether a treasure. 
I’m a childless old man. My wife, God bless her, 
died when we were both young. I’m pretty well 
to do, and I haven’t a soul dependent upon me. 
I’m going to educate Jeannette if she’ll let 
me ” 

“ But, doctor,” interrupted Theodore. 

“ But me no buts, young man . I’m not asking 
your gracious permission, but hers. If she says 
Yes to the proposal, I’ll send her to the very best 
woman’s school there is in America, and pay her 


REINFORCEMENTS 


l S9 


expenses; and when she comes to graduate she 
shall order her own gown and twiddle her fingers 
at the dressmaker. I’ll look after the flowers, and 
if the gardens and hot-houses don’t quit business 
the flowers will be all they should be. Now,” 
seeing that Theodore wanted to interrupt him, 
“ go away over yonder to the far end of the raft 
and see how everybody there is getting on. I’ve 
got a badly burned patient to look after here. Be 
sure to get back in time for the supper Jeannette’s 
getting ready for us.” 

With that the little old doctor walked hurriedly 
away to attend his patient. 

“ I wonder what his life has been,” thought 
Theodore. “ On one side of his nature there is 
science of the coldest possible sort. On the other 
side he has sentiment, and his sentiment is as 
warm as it is tender. God bless him, anyhow, for 
appreciating Jeannette.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 

Half an hour later Theodore and the doctor sat 
together over the late supper which Jeannette had 
so lovingly provided for them. The patients were 
all comfortable for the night, and the two men — 
the doctor and Theodore — the one old and the 
other young — were hungry and terribly exhausted. 
But upon their shoulders rested all responsibility 
for the situation. It was Theodore who most fully 
recognized this, at least so far as it concerned the 
making of preparations for getting the ship- 
wrecked party away from their present position 
and into a better one. The doctor was concerned 
chiefly with the medical and surgical treatment of 
his patients. Theodore was thinking of their ulti- 
mate welfare, and especially of their removal, at 
the earliest possible moment, from their present 
exposed and highly unfavorable location. 

“We ought not to lose the night, ought we?” 
he asked. 

“ I’m not quite sure I understand,” answered the 
man of science. “ How are we losing the night? ” 

160 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 


1 6 1 


“ Why it seems to me pressingly necessary to 
get these people away from here as quickly as we 
can. Oughtn’t we to set to work building a raft 
to-night? We can get it half done by morning.” 

“But Theodore,” said Jeannette, “why build a 
raft at all? It’s only ten or twelve miles down the 
river to our camp. We have five roomy skiffs 
here. Most of the people can sit up now. Why 
not take them down in the skiffs? We’ve plenty 
of strong men to row, and we can carry them all 
in two or three trips of the skiffs.” 

Theodore had to think only for a moment before 
replying : 

“ That’s true, and it will be vastly easier and 
quicker to make two or three trips with the skiffs 
than to build a raft and tow it down the stream. 
I wonder I didn’t think of that.” 

“You’ve been thinking of so many things, you 
dear, big brother, that it’s no wonder. It’s time 
for some of the rest of us to do a little of the 
thinking now.” 

“You’re a good sister anyhow,” said the utterly 
worn-out boy. “I’m going to sleep now, and in 
the morning we’ll move the people down to the 
refuge camp.” 

With that the sturdy boy waded over from the 
fire to the raft, wrapped himself in a blanket which 


162 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


Jeannette had jealously reserved for his use, and 
went to sleep under the stars. 

Early in the morning the work of transferring 
the people began. Most of them had by that time 
begun to recover their strength under the stimu- 
lus of food and the recuperative influence of sleep, 
but those who were worst burned were, of course, 
helpless invalids. These were a gentlewoman and 
her three little children. They had started from 
La Salle on their way to St. Louis, where the hus- 
band and father was a prosperous lawyer. The 
children had been asleep when the fire occurred, 
and in the excitement there was nobody to help 
the woman in the work of rescuing them. Sec- 
onds counted for minutes at such a time, and 
before the gentlewoman could get the children off 
the boat both she and they were terribly burned. 

Jeannette claimed these sufferers for her own. 

She made pallets for the children in the bottom 
of the skiff, and arranged a comfortable seat in 
the stern for their mother. Then she announced 
her purpose to row that skiff herself. But Joe 
interposed. 

“ No, no, no,” he said in his broken way. “ I’ll 
row. You can’t. That’s all.” 

There was no use in objecting. Joe had made 
up his mind to row and there was an end of the 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 163 

matter. Joe had, in a manner, taken possession 
of Jeannette. His admiration for her was limit- 
less. His affection for her was dog-like in its ab- 
soluteness of devotion. So it was Joe who rowed, 
and long before noon Jeannette had her patients 
comfortably housed and bedded at Camp Refuge, 
where their recovery, under the care of the little 
old doctor and under Jeannette’s nursing, was 
merely a matter of time. 

The rest of the people were practically well as 
soon as the doctor thought it prudent to put them 
upon their customary diet of ham and bacon. 
They left in squads to make their way down the 
river on foot, their plan being to walk to Alton, a 
town in Illinois opposite the mouth of the Mis- 
souri River, and there to take steamboat for St. 
Louis. 

One thing Theodore very greatly wanted to do. 
He wanted to catch Billy Patterson and his law- 
less companions, and to bring them to justice. 
But in that endeavor he failed. He sent Edgar 
in a skiff, with two of the steamboat men to do 
the rowing, down to Alton, to telegraph the facts 
down the river. But Billy Patterson had antici- 
pated some such movement, and had gone off 
westward — probably over the Santa Fe trail — thus 
completely taking himself out of civilization. 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


164 

This result was disappointing to Theodore, who 
had a healthy, honest boy’s impulse to run down a 
coward and a criminal and bring him to justice. 
But there was nothing more to be done and so 
Billy Patterson escaped with his booty, as he had 
so often escaped before. 

All but a baker’s half-dozen or so of the ship- 
wrecked people had left the camp when Edgar 
returned. There remained only the woman and 
her three children, the clerk of the boat, and two 
others of those who had been worst burned. 
These were now comfortably bestowed and in a 
fair way to get well. 

“You ought to understand,” said the little old 
doctor, “ but of course you don’t, for nobody ever 
does, that it isn’t a doctor’s business to cure peo- 
ple of their maladies.” 

“ But I thought that was the one function of the 
doctor,” answered Edgar in amazement. 

“ Of course you did. And that is what every- 
body else thinks. The doctors have only them- 
selves to blame for all that. They used to pretend 
to occult knowledge. They pretended to know 
how to cure disease long before they knew what 
disease was. They pretended to know how to 
cure fevers even when they were denying Har- 
vey’s discovery of the fact that the blood circulates 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 165 

through the system with the heart as a force 
pump. A hundred years ago every doctor carried 
a cane, the head of which was supposed to contain 
certain occult preventives of disease, and when- 
ever he sat by the bedside of a patient he held the 
cane-head to his nose in order that he might not 
catch the patient’s disease. But he never gave the 
patient or his nurses and attendants a smell of his 
cane-head. It was all rubbish and false pretense. 
Doctors never became really useful and scientific 
till they abandoned all that pretense and frankly 
admitted that they could not pretend to cure dis- 
ease.” 

“ But what is the function of the physician 
then?” asked Edgar, the questioner. 

“Why, simply to put and keep his patient in 
that condition which is most favorable to recovery 
by nature’s own processes, and to aid those proc- 
esses in every way he can.” 

“ Could you explain that a little more fully, doc- 
tor?” asked Ed, who was never satisfied with half 
knowledge. 

“Certainly. When we found these people up 
there on the raft, the worst trouble they had was 
starvation. I couldn’t give them any dose of 
medicine that could cure the results of that. What 
did I do ? I set Theodore to making rabbit stew 


1 66 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


for them, and later I got that splendid girl Jean- 
nette — you must pretend that you’re stone deaf, 
Jeannette — to cook other things for them. I was 
simply putting and keeping them in that condition 
which is most favorable to recovery by nature’s 
own processes. You see, nature intends every 
sick man or woman or child to get well. All it 
asks is a chance, and the doctor’s business is to 
give it a chance, — the best chance he can.” 

“But, doctor,” interrupted Jeannette, “how 
about those heroic doses of quinine you gave Allan 
and me the other day? ” 

“ Well, I must admit that in giving quinine to 
cure 4 fevernager ’ a doctor comes nearer to actually 
curing disease than in most other cases. Still, he 
is only giving nature a chance even in giving 
quinine, and it is nature that does the work.” 

“ How do you mean? ” 

“ Why, the reason a man has ‘ fevernager ’ is that 
his blood is filled with certain living spores that 
create a hubbub and play the old hob with his 4 in- 
nards.’ Now, the only way the doctor can help 
nature to get that fellow well is by killing those 
spores in his blood with quinine or with food. 
For I’ve done it with food many a time when I 
couldn’t get quinine, and even when I’ve plenty 
of quinine I rely upon beef to do the best part of 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 167 

the work by so building up the system as to enable 
it to deal with the spores on its own account. 
There’s a lot that I won’t bother to tell you about 
concerning migratory white corpuscles of the 
blood, and all that. But you can write it up in 
your hats for ready reference that the doctor who 
pretends to 'cure’ disease is a quack. All he can 
do is to put and keep the patient in the condition 
most favorable to recovery by natural processes.” 

It is to be remembered that the little doctor 
spoke from the point of view that medical science 
had attained in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. He knew nothing of the germ theory of 
disease or of antisepsis, or of a score of other 
things that are familiar to the doctors of our day. 
But he was a scientific man, and he seems to have 
known quite all that science knew or taught in his 
time. 

Now that everything had been done for the sick 
people that could be done, there was nothing to 
do but wait. But while waiting the boys and 
Jeannette and the doctor talked. They talked 
day and night, by daylight and by moonlight, by 
starlight, and by the light of a drift-wood fire. 

It was during one of their talks that Theodore 
asked : 

* “ How comes it, doctor, that you are practicing 


1 68 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


medicine in a little Illinois river town? Surely 
your learning and your ability are worthy of a 
larger field.” 

“ Well now, do you know,” answered the little 
old doctor, “ folks in a little Illinois river town get 
just as sick as people in St. Louis do, and need a 
doctor just as badly? ” 

“ Of course,” said Theodore, “ I understand all 
that. But that isn’t what I mean. I mean that a 
man of your learning and ability ” 

“ Oh, yes, I know what you would say! Now 
let me tell you. You’re thinking about ‘ careers,’ 
and all that. But why should any man have a 
career ? Why should he cavort around and prance 
over other people’s heads as a superior person 
merely because he happens to know a little more 
or because of some other little circumstance like 
that ? ” 

Then the doctor paused a moment, after which 
he said : 

“ That isn’t a fair answer, Theodore. You asked 
an honest question and my answer hasn’t been 
quite honest. Now let me tell you. You are 
thinking that I ought to have a larger reward for 
my skill and my services than the people in a little 
river town can give me, either in money or reputa- 
tion. I don’t know so well about that. I remem- 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 169 

ber a man who managed very great enterprises 
and literally wore himself out in the service. 
When somebody asked him one day what he got 
for all his work, he answered, ‘Only board, lodg- 
ing, and clothes.’ After all, that is all the ma- 
terial reward that any man can get in this world 
for any work he may do, however great it may be. 
Still, that is a wrong and unworthy way to look at 
the matter. A man who has anything of character 
in him gets greatly more than that out of his 
work. Cy Bolen broke his arm last fall, and I set 
it for him. Cy never had a dollar to the good in 
his life, and never will. It never occurred to me 
to send Cy a bill for my services in setting his 
arm. For that matter, I never sent anybody a bill 
for services in my life. But I’ll tell you about that 
another time. There’s a reason for it, and it isn’t 
to my credit. 

“ When I saw Cy sawing and splitting Squire 
Grisard’s winter wood with his mended arm, and 
knew that Cy’s wife and little children would have 
bread and meat and molasses as the rewards of 
his labor, don’t you think I felt repaid for setting 
his arm? That little job didn’t cost me half an 
hour’s work, and as for skill — why — well, it was a 
rather complex matter, as the wound was a bad 
one and the fracture was compound, but any doc- 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


170 

tor who knows his business ought to have been 
able to do it, though a good many of the dunder- 
heads don’t. However, that isn’t the point. 
When I saw Cy sawing that wood and splitting it 
and carrying it into Squire Grisard’s cellar, I 
knew that Cy’s arm was all right. I knew his lit- 
tle children would have plenty of pork and mo- 
lasses that winter, and — well, you know how one 
feels. I was glad I had succeeded in setting Cy’s 
arm. But don’t go away with the idea that be- 
cause Cy had no money he never tried to pay me. 
From the day his arm got well until now he has 
looked after my wood-pile as jealously as if it were 
his own. Further than that, he knows every 
wood-box in my house, and he keeps all of them 
filled, so that when I want to throw a stick on the 
fire I always know the stick is there handy. 
Don’t you think I have been abundantly paid?” 

"Well, yes, of course,” answered Theodore: 
“ and yet all that doesn’t answer my question. It 
doesn’t tell me why a man of your skill and learn- 
ing and ability hasn’t sought a larger field for him- 
self. It doesn’t tell me why you shouldn’t have 
settled in one of the great cities — Cincinnati, St. 
Louis, or New Orleans — and made fame as well 
as fortune for yourself.” 

“ That means,” answered the doctor, “ that you 


SUPPER AND SLEEP 


171 

want to know the story of my life. Very well. 
I’ll tell it to you. But it is late now, so I’ll not 
tell it to-night. To-morrow night when we all get 
together I will. There’ll be a good moon then 
and we’ll all be together. Good-night now. You 
must go to bed. I’m going for a tramp and a 
think.” 

“May I not go with you?” asked Edgar, who 
had come to feel a special affection for the little 
old doctor. 

“ No, my boy, no. I want to think. I’ve a proj- 
ect in mind. If you walk with me, I shall talk to 
you. I don’t want to talk. I wan’t to think.” 

So the queer little old doctor was left to himself. 
He went out upon the prairie and spent the night 
there where the soil was parched and burned by 
the recent fire. But his thinking seemed to have 
satisfied him, and when he returned to breakfast 
next morning he seemed almost young again and 
rejoicing in the thought that was in him — what- 
ever it was. 


€ 

CHAPTER XVIII 

THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S STORY 

“Now, if I am going to tell this story,” said the 
little doctor, “ I am going to tell it in my own way, 
because it’s my own story, and I’m not bound to 
tell it at all. 

“In the first place, there isn’t anything regular 
about me except my profession. I believe I am 
regarded as a regular in that. Anyhow, I give 
quinine and calomel enough to be reckoned so. 

“You see, I was born in a border settlement 
where nothing was done in a regular way, and I 
have lived on the border all my life except while I 
was studying medicine in the East and in Paris. 
You, Theodore, asked me the other day why I 
was practicing medicine in a little town on the 
Illinois River instead of having an office as a physi- 
cian and surgeon in one or other of our big cities. 
I gave you an answer which was distinctly equivo- 
cal, and it always makes my conscience hurt to 
know that I have given an equivocal answer to 
any honest question. 

“ I told you then that people got just as sick in 
172 


THE DOCTOR’S STORY 


i73 


a little town as they do in a big city, and people in 
a little town need the services of a good doctor — 
and I believe I am a good doctor— just as impera- 
tively as do people in a big town. 

“ But that wasn’t quite a fair answer to your 
question. The fact is that my practice of medi- 
cine has always been a side issue in my life. I 
have never depended upon it for a living, and I 
have never been quite free to practice it as I might 
have done if I had been independent. Now, when 
people say that they have not been independent, 
they mean that they have not had enough money 
or property or something else to do as they 
pleased. That is not what I mean. I mean just 
the reverse. The trouble with me has been all 
my life that I started out with too much money 
and property. 

“ I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. 
The silver was oxidized a good deal, but still it 
was the genuine thing. My father left me an 
ample fortune, and it has hampered me ever since, 
controlling my life and limiting it to such an ex- 
tent that if I had to be born over again I should 
prefer to be born with an iron spoon or a pewter 
one or no spoon at all. Let me explain. 

“ My father left me a vast property in land here 
in Illinois, and while he left me a good deal of 


174 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


ready money besides, his leaving of the lands to 
me imposed upon me an obligation which has 
been like a ball and chain around my feet ever 
since. 

“ My father was one of George Rogers Clark’s 
men. He held an office of some sort, I do not 
know what — lieutenant or captain, or something 
else — under that great soldier — and Clark was a 
great soldier, be sure of that — as great as Napo- 
leon, or Marlborough, or Wellington, and almost 
as great as Washington. He won this western 
country to the Union with smaller means and 
more meager supplies than any other man ever 
had for such an undertaking. But you know 
that story. Every Western boy knows how 
Clark took Kaskaskia and then with less than two 
hundred men, marched to Vincennes in midwin- 
ter, often wading armpit-deep in water, in order to 
conquer all this western country for the United 
States. 

“ Now, my father, as I told you, was one of 
George Rogers Clark’s officers. Long after the 
Revolution was over the Government rewarded 
such men as he with land-warrants, which author- 
ized them to take up and make their own wild 
lands in all this western region. 

“ These were the rewards which the unpaid sol- 


THE DOCTOR’S STORY 


1 75 

diers and the unpensioned survivors of the Revo- 
lution got. But many of the men who got these 
land-warrants had not the courage to face ‘fever- 
nager,’ although they had faced it so bravely in 
Clark’s campaigns. They wanted to spend their 
lives in the healthier country in Kentucky, or 
even to go back to their old homes in Virginia. 
They were ready, therefore, to sell their land-war- 
rants for a song to my father, who for a little 
money bought all that were offered. He located 
the lands mainly in this Illinois River region, which 
he clearly foresaw was destined some day to be 
the garden spot of America. 

“ Then, in 1812, this soldier-father of mine — you 
wouldn’t think it from his deeds, but he was not 
any bigger than I am — raised a company and went 
into the war against the British. 

“He fought the Creeks in Alabama, the desper- 
adoes in Florida, and the British at New Orleans. 
When he came out of that war, his rank was that 
of colonel, and again the Government rewarded 
him and his comrades with land-warrants. 

“Again his comrades, many of them, did not 
care to take up the wild lands that then repre- 
sented nothing of value, and so they offered 
their land-warrants for sale. Again my father, 
having accumulated another little sum by his 


1 76 RUNNING THE RIVER 

thrift, bought the warrants freely and located his 
lands. 

“ Curiously enough, he located some of them 
much more wisely than he knew. He could not 
foresee the coming of railroads, but he had the 
nous to see that some day a great public highway 
of some sort would be built from Lake Michigan 
at Chicago to Cairo, at the mouth of the Ohio, 
and so he took pains to locate a good many lands 
along the line of that highway. Afterwards, when 
railroads began to come into being, the Govern- 
ment granted a great strip of territory there as an 
inducement to the railroad people to build a rail- 
road from Chicago to Cairo. 

“ Now, it so happened that many of the sections 
thus granted to the railroad had been already 
taken up by my father, and they had to be bought 
back again at a very greatly advanced price. 

“ Thus it happened that when my father died 
he left me not only a princely acreage along the 
Illinois River, but a considerable sum of money as 
the proceeds of the lands he had sold back to the 
Government. As to the Illinois River lands, there 
was scarcely an acre of them that I could have 
sold at that time for enough to pay the lawyer’s 
fees and the allowance of the recording officers 
employed in transferring it. 


THE DOCTOR’S STORY 


1 77 

“ If I had been a man of common sense and 
ordinary self-seeking, I should have contented 
myself with the sum of money left me. I should 
have abandoned these lands to whatever fate 
might overtake them and I should have gone off 
to some city to practice my profession. But, you 
see, I understood the dream that my father had 
had, and I loved my father’s memory well enough 
to want to realize that dream. He foresaw how 
great a country all this was to be. He saw clearly 
that all these lands would some day be worth 
fabulous prices per acre, and that I, his only son, 
his only child, would own them all as a princely 
inheritance. 

“It seemed to me that loyalty to my father de- 
manded that I should take whatever pains there 
might be necessary to reduce this dream of his to 
reality. 

“He had given me the best education in my 
profession which it was possible then to get. He 
had sent me through all the schools that could 
avail me in this country, and had given me five 
years in Paris to study there the art of healing. 

“ His death came just when those five years 
were ended, and his dying words to me were 
counsels to hold on to the Illinois lands. 

“ Now, what could I do, in loyalty to my father, 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


178 

but settle down here on the Illinois River, hold on 
to the lands, watch my opportunities, and realize 
his dreams? 

“ I felt that I could be useful here as a doctor 
while devoting myself to the care and the develop- 
ment of the enormous domain which my father 
had left me. 

“ If you have followed me, you will understand 
that I had the very great disadvantage of be- 
ginning life rich. I not only owned a vast prop- 
erty in lands, which was inevitably destined to be 
worth a fabulous sum, but from the sale of the 
lands along the Illinois Central Railroad I had 
cash in abundance and superabundance.” 

“ But, doctor, why do you call that a disadvan- 
tage?” asked Edgar, whose question was always 
trembling on his lips. 

“ I call it a disadvantage because it is so. If I 
had not had more money than I knew what to do 
with from the beginning, I might have made my- 
self a man of some consequence in the world in 
my profession, or in allied branches of science. 
As it is, I am at nearly seventy years of age nothing 
more than a little old country doctor. 

“ You boys are just now lamenting your father’s 
loss of the money which he would otherwise have 
bequeathed to you at his death. You ought 


THE DOCTOR’S STORY 


l 19 


rather to congratulate yourselves that a fortunate 
accident has compelled you to start out for your- 
selves and do your own work in the world. Be 
very sure that nothing can possibly be better for a 
young man than that.” 

“ Thank you, doctor,” responded Theodore; 
“ and we have even a stronger stimulus than that.” 

“ What is it? ” 

“ Why, we three boys have determined to re- 
build the steamboat line which our father had 
created and which was destroyed by that terrible 
disaster.” 

“ Good ! ” exclaimed the little doctor. “ Good, 
good, good! And in that endeavor I’m going to 
help — oh, I mean on strictly business principles ! ” 
The end of his sentence was in answer to protest- 
ing looks. 


CHAPTER XIX 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 

It was three or four days later before the little 
doctor made up his mind that all the patients were 
well enough to be removed to St. Louis. Then 
the problem arose of how to remove them. The 
water in the Illinois River had gone so low during 
the prolonged drought that not even the smallest 
of the steamboats could be sent up to take the 
place of the burned Statesman. It was not far, 
however, from the point at which Camp Refuge 
had been established to the mouth of the river, 
and it was only twenty miles from the mouth of 
the river to the little town of Alton, opposite the 
point at which the Missouri debouches into the 
Mississippi. The party had skiffs in plenty, and 
it was decided to use as many of them as might be 
necessary as a means of transporting the entire 
party to Alton, where they could easily secure 
passage to St. Louis on one or other of the steam- 
boats coming down out of the upper Mississippi. 

On the evening before the departure of the party 
on this homeward voyage the little doctor seemed 

180 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 181 


to have something on his mind. He began asking 
questions of various kinds. Finally he turned to 
Theodore and asked : 

“ Have you made up your books? What’s the 
result of your trip ? ” 

“ I have made them up as well as I can,” said 
Theodore, “ and there is only one element of un- 
certainty.” 

“Tell me, then,” said the doctor, “as nearly as 
you can how you have come out on this expedition 
— I mean in a financial way, what have you made 
or what have you lost ? ” 

Then the little doctor’s courtesy got the better 
of him, and he said hurriedly: 

“ Do not think me impertinent. I am asking 
this question for a business reason and with a 
business purpose in view.” 

“After all your kindness to us, doctor,” said 
Theodore, “ we cannot think any question of yours 
an impertinent one, or even one that we could call 
intrusive. On the contrary, we are glad that we 
have a friend sufficiently interested to ask about 
our affairs. Let me explain to you doctor: When 
we set out on this trip, we had a very small capital, 
and it was in a way a matter of life and death with 
us to make that capital do its work well. You 
see, we had resolved that in a year or two we 


182 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


would rebuild the Highflyer line of steamboats 
from Cincinnati to St. Louis and restore to the 
Faraday name the fruits of our father’s life-long 
efforts. This trip was our first step in that direc- 
tion. If we could make money with the store-boat, 
we might presently do better for ourselves and 
thus build up a foundation at least for that restor- 
ation of the steamboat business on which we are 
bent. Our trip on this river was not altogether a 
wild venture, however, because in undertaking it 
we had the advice of our father’s friend, Mr. 
Chouteau, who, as you know, is a great merchant 
in St. Louis and has had a life-long experience in 
sending out commercial expeditions. He has sent 
them, as you know, everywhere up and down these 
rivers and far beyond the Rocky Mountains, and 
to Santa Fe, and, in fact, into every quarter of the 
country that is in any way commercially tributary 
to St. Louis. It was he who advised this particular 
expedition and marked out this method for us. 

“ Still, when we undertook the enterprise, we 
did so with a good deal of anxiety concerning the 
results. Now, as a matter of fact, our results have 
been even better than he anticipated. He thought 
that we might double our capital. We have, in 
fact, trebled it, and something more. ‘ That is 
largely due to the fact that the country produce, 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 183 

and especially the saddle blankets, which we 
bought for goods at fifty or one hundred per 
cent profit, have been sold at fancy prices in St. 
Louis. We started out with a little more than 
two thousand dollars capital. A part of that, of 
course, was invested in the store-boat and the rest 
of it in the goods that we undertook to sell. After 
making up our little books I find that we have 
rather more than trebled our original capital — that 
is to say, if we have no trouble with the insurance 
company. I mean by that, that if the insurance 
company pays us in full for the loss of the store- 
boat and of what goods we had on it at the time 
of its loss, we shall come out with about three 
times the amount of money we started with ; and 
even if the insurance company pays nothing at 
all, we shall still come out with more than twice 
what we had at the beginning.” 

“ There will be no question about the insur- 
ance,” answered the little doctor; “I shall see to 
that myself. I am going with you to St. Louis. 
I am a large stockholder, and a very dear friend 
of mine is managing-director in your insurance 
company. I myself saw this great prairie fire, 
and know all the facts concerning it. When I 
lay them before the company, there will be no 
doubt whatever about your settlement. But now 


1 84 RUNNING THE RIVER 

tell me, Theodore, what your plans are for the 
future.” 

“Well,” said Theodore, “it was originally my 
idea to run the store-boat down the Mississippi 
and have her towed up the Red River, where Mr. 
Chouteau assures me there is a particularly good 
trade with the smaller plantation owners. We 
could sell goods to them, he says, and, better still, 
we could buy their little products of sugar, mo- 
lasses, rice, etc., at very low figures, because they 
do not grow enough of these things to justify 
them in having permanent arrangements with 
commission houses in New Orleans for their sale. 

“ That was my original plan, but now that the 
store-boat is gone, and now that we have six thou- 
sand dollars to the good, and a little more, I have 
been wondering whether we could not do better by 
buying a little dinky steamboat instead of a store- 
boat. We could carry a great deal more freight 
on a little stern-wheeler than we could on a store- 
boat, and I think we could increase our profits 
proportionally. Of course I can do that only if 
Mr. Chouteau will back me as I think he will. It 
will take most of our capital to buy and equip the 
steamboat. I do not know ; I have not settled it my 
own mind ; I must wait till we get to St. Louis and 
make inquiry ; then I shall decide what is best to do.” 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 185 

“ Well now, Theodore,” said the doctor, “ I am 
particularly impressed with the business sagacity 
already shown by the firm of Faraday Brothers 
and Sister. It has trebled its capital within a few 
months. I call that uncommonly good business. 
So I have made up my mind, if you will let me, to 
buy an interest in the firm. In that case you need 
not make any appeal to Mr. Chouteau. We can 
carry on the business on our own account and on 
our own capital.” 

“ But, doctor,” broke in Jeannette, “ I thought 
you did not care to make money? ” 

'‘Neither do I, you critical mite. But while I 
do most of my own work for nothing, as a profes- 
sional man, I always insist upon it that my money 
shall work for wages all the time. In that way I 
make sure that there shall be plenty of it to give 
away when I get ready to give it away. Now, we 
won’t talk any further about this matter to-night. 
Just remember that I have some money lying idle 
in St. Louis at present, and I am going there to 
set it at work. To that end I want to buy an in- 
terest in the firm of Faraday Brothers and Sister.” 

The boys had by this time come to know the 
little old doctor and his ways. The people in the 
little town where he lived had told them much 
about him in a direct fashion and a good deal 


1 86 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


more indirectly. They had heard from those 
people many stories of his peculiar doings. They 
heard of many cases in which, after he had been 
called to attend a case of illness in a poor family, 
the family found a full flour barrel standing where 
the empty one had been ; or to their surprise they 
found half a dozen sides of bacon hanging around 
in dark corners where they could not remember 
that any bacon had hung before. On one occasion 
several blankets mysteriously appeared at the back 
door of a little house where the bread-winner of 
the family had lain ill so long that the wife and 
little ones were suffering, and when the blankets 
were opened there were packages of sugar, coffee, 
rice, and other things inside. 

And it was further hinted that a considerable 
part of the wood that Cy Bolen earned his living 
by sawing was wood which some unknown person 
had deposited in the backyards of poor families. 
It was observed that in these cases Cy never 
made any charge for sawing and splitting the 
wood. Nobody but Cy knew who his paymaster 
was. 

The little doctor always insisted that he knew 
nothing about these things when people accused 
him of doing them. When a barrel of molasses 
was found one morning at the Widow Kinkaid’s 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 187 

door and the little doctor was asked about it, he 
replied, with a show of irritation: 

“Why do you come to me about it? I never 
saw that barrel of molasses, and I don’t know who 
put it there.” 

Perhaps he didn’t, but the store-keeper who had 
delivered it knew very well to whom to send the 
bill for it. 

Then there was another story. A few years be- 
fore the time of this tale the little doctor had 
become greatly concerned over the condition of 
the schools in the little town and the country 
round about. He talked incessantly about it till 
he got the community stirred up on the subject. 
He insisted that there were no schools in the vil- 
lage or in the country neighborhoods worth con- 
sidering ; that the teachers were ignorant and in- 
capable and the schools a disgrace to the town 
and county. Finally, he created a sufficient senti- 
ment in favor of better things to secure a doubling 
of the school fund. Then his neighbors insisted 
that he should himself take control of the school 
system. He did so, and the schools were quickly 
improved. The new teachers whom he employed 
were educated men and women. The amount of 
money in the school fund, even after it had been 
doubled, was so small as to allow only the meanest 


1 8 8 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


kind of salaries to the teachers, and it was a mat- 
ter of wonder in the community that the little 
doctor should be able to employ such teachers as 
he did for so little. 

“ Influence ! ” he explained when questioned 
about the matter. “ Personal persuasion — all that 
sort of thing.” 

In a sense that was true. But the personal per- 
suasion and the influence took the form of checks 
on a St. Louis bank, signed by the little doctor, to 
make good the difference between the salaries 
allowed from the school fund and the pay to which 
such teachers as these were entitled. 

It was observed also that the school-houses 
throughout the county were kept in better repair 
than ever before, and were supplied with im- 
proved blackboards and other appliances which 
the school fund had never before been able to 
afford. 

Then at the end of the year the little doctor’s 
books refused to balance. They showed a total 
expenditure of nearly twice the amount received 
into the school fund, and yet there were no debts 
or unpaid charges against the fund. The little 
doctor nervously explained that in addition to the 
funds provided by the public, he had “ had the use 
of other funds voluntarily contributed in aid of the 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 189 

schools.” He would not tell who had contributed 
these other funds, but there wasn’t much doubt on 
that subject in the minds of those who knew the 
little doctor. 

To all these things that the boys had heard to 
the credit of the little doctor’s generosity there 
was added their own knowledge of his kindly 
ways. Their association with him had lasted for 
some weeks now, and they had come to think of 
him with something more and better than mere 
esteem and admiration. They held him in a very 
close affection, the more particularly because of 
his ceaseless tenderness toward Jeannette. If 
that young person had been his own daughter, 
the little doctor could not have been more careful 
of her welfare or more entertaining to her as an 
elderly friend. He would remember some after- 
noon that she had not had exercise enough, and 
by way of repairing the omission, he would take 
her hand and lead her up and down the shore, or 
out on the prairie, he walking in the nervously 
brisk way in which he always walked, and she half 
the time skipping in gleeful, childish fashion by 
his side. 

Often the little pair— for the doctor was scarcely 
taller than Jeannette— would sit down on the 
ground and study one of the plants which were 


190 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


beginning to grow on the prairie again after the 
fire. Jeannette did not know it, but the little 
doctor was teaching her botany all the time. He 
had a multitude of little pockets in out-of-the-way 
parts of his clothes, and from these he would draw 
forth the most unexpected things when he needed 
them — magnifying glasses, teasing needles, dimin- 
utive tweezers, and a score of other things with 
which to show the little girl what he wanted her 
to see about the plant or insect under examina- 
tion. As he pointed out one interesting thing 
after another, he talked to her about what they 
were seeing, talking not at all like a lecturer or a 
schoolmaster giving a lesson, but as one bright 
young person might talk to another. 

Usually he pretended to discover each interest- 
ing point quite by accident and just as if he had 
never heard of it before, but had at that moment 
come upon it to his own surprise. Then, after he 
and Jeannette had worked the thing out together, 
he would suddenly remember the Latin name for 
it, and offer to bet Jeannette a dollar to a dough- 
nut that she couldn’t carry it in her mind for an 
hour. If those wagers of dollars to doughnuts 
had been in earnest, the little doctor would have 
found Jeannette a very expensive little body to be 
with. For she never failed to remember the Latin 


SENTIMENT AND DOUGHNUTS 191 

terms, so that she won all the imaginary dollars 
and he none of the supposititious doughnuts. 

But Jeannette had her little revenge. The camp 
was well provisioned now, and one day when the 
doctor had gone down to the town in a skiff to 
attend a sick person there, Jeannette set herself to 
work, and on his return she brought forth a bowl 
filled with freshly made doughnuts, feathery in 
their lightness, and, as the doctor said, “ with a 
smell of fat sweetness on them that would wreck 
the resolution of an anchorite on Fast-day.” 

The doctor was hungry after his long row in the 
boat. So he ate Jeannette’s dainties with a vora- 
cious appetite. Nevertheless he secreted one of 
the doughnuts, and after a while he went out on 
the prairie all alone. There he drew some oiled 
silk from one of his pockets and carefully wrapped 
the cake in it. Next he brought forth a small me- 
tallic case, from which he emptied whatever it was 
that he had carried in it. Then he deposited the 
doughnut there and returned the case to his 
pocket. 

“I’ll carry that with me so long as I live,” he 
muttered. 

Then an amused smile rippled all over his curi- 
ously mobile face. 

“Just think of it! Sentiment and a doughnut! 


192 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


It’s an odd combination — particularly when the 
sentimental youth happens to be a little old doc- 
tor. Jeannette took delight in secretly making 
those doughnuts for me, partly to carry out the 
little joke about our wagers, but far more because 
she knows I’m fond of doughnuts and wanted me 
to have some. So I’m going to keep the dough- 
nut, and I’m not going to laugh at the little old 
doctor for his sentiment.” 

And why should he laugh at himself? Is not 
sentiment, such as he felt, the one thing that 
sweetens life, prompts noble and generous actions, 
and makes all the difference between civilized hu- 
man beings and brute beasts? 



CHAPTER XX 

THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 

The trip to St. Louis was an uneventful one. 
The little party slowly rowed down the river to its 
mouth, and thence down the Mississippi to Alton. 
They stopped every night, of course, and slept by 
a campfire on the shore. On the way Edgar 
asked the little doctor a question which embar- 
rassed him somewhat. 

“ How about your practice, doctor? Won’t 
your patients miss you sadly, especially at this 
season when the ‘fevernager ’ is so prevalent? ” 

“ Oh, no ! ” answered the little doctor, with a 
shame-flushed face. He was always ashamed 
when caught in a generous act. “ At least not for 
long. You see a very capable young physician 
has settled in the town lately, and — well, I like 
him, and my absence will give him a chance. He 
needs it badly enough, for he has a wife and a 
baby to support. I mean to be absent for a long 
time — all winter at any rate, and longer if he gets 
on well — or rather I mean if — well, if I think I’m 
not particularly needed there. And I shan’t be; 
13 193 


194 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


for he is really a very capable young fellow, as 
I have told everybody, and he’s full of energy. 
Why, do you know, that young doctor took 
charge of a bad case at my request when I went 
up the river to treat Jeannette, and he actually 
stayed two whole days and nights by the bedside, 
getting nothing more than cat naps, and not many 
of them? He managed the case wonderfully well, 
and he has a saved life to his credit. He wanted 
me to stay and attend the case while he should 
go up the river to take care of the shipwrecked 
people. But I told him I was a good deal run 
down and needed a little outing, and that — well, 
the case I turned over to him was in the family of 
the wealthiest and most influential merchant in 
the town. So I thought it might help his practice 
a little to have charge of it, particularly as I was 
likely to be away for a considerable time.” 

“You dear, good, little old doctor!” broke in 
Jeannette, “ and now you’re going away for a long 
time just so that you may put that doctor into 
your shoes and give his wife and baby a chance.” 

“No, not at all,” protested the doctor, “you 
misjudged me, Jeannette. Let ” 

“No, I won’t let you. I know ” 

“Be quiet, will you?” the doctor enjoined. 
“Let me tell you how it is. I’m getting old. 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 195 

I’m a little tired of the routine of practice. I have 
some money lying idle in St. Louis and a number 
of other business interests there that require my 
personal attention. I need a rest, and the fortu- 
nate advent of this really capable young doctor 
gives me a chance to take it. You see, he can 
take just as good care of the sick people as I 
could.” 

“ I think I understand,” said the shrewd little 
Jeannette, whose understanding of the little old 
doctor was more intimate than that of any of the 
others. 

“ Now, Jeannette, you’re wrong ” 

'‘No, I’m not. You’ve made up your mind to 
turn your practice over to this young physician, 
and that’s why you’ve run away with us. You’re 
the dearest, most generous, old false pretender I 
ever heard of anywhere. You’ll never go back to 
that town, or, if you do, you’ll pretend to have 
rheumatism or something else, and tell people who 
call you to go to the young doctor. You’ll fib by 
telling them you’re too old or too infirm, or too 
something else, and if you were here in the stern 
of the boat instead of being away up in the bow 
I’d kiss you just for fibbing in that charming way.” 

Thereupon the little old doctor rose from his 
seat in the bow, climbed nimbly over the oars- 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


196 

men’s thwarts, took Jeannette’s little hand in his 
and kissed it gallantly. 

“ Anyhow,” said Jeannette, “ it won’t do for you 
to plead rheumatism after so nimble a perform- 
ance as that.” 

The little doctor perfectly understood, and the 
boys knew that he understood, their fixed deter- 
mination to maintain their independence, to do 
for themselves, and to accept gratuities at no 
man’s hands. He would not have liked or re- 
spected them if he had not known this. So he 
said to them : 

“ Now you must understand me, please. In all 
that I am planning with regard to our partnership 
I have no thought of doing anything except upon 
a strictly business basis. I have fully accepted 
Theodore’s idea for the extension of your business 
and your profits. In order to extend them the 
firm must have a considerably larger capital. I 
propose to furnish that capital as a silent partner 
in the enterprise. I shall expect and receive the 
full share of the profits to which my contribution 
of capital entitles me, you receiving yours in like 
proportion. That’s fair, isn’t it?” 

“ Perfectly,” answered the boys in a breath. 

“ But in most partnerships,” continued the little 
doctor, “ there are some of the partners who do 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 197 

the work, attending to the business, while others 
put only their money into it. In every such case 
the partners who work in carrying on the business 
draw salaries from the common fund. That’s 
their right. Now, while I won’t tell you another 
word about my plans for the further conduct of 
the business of Faraday Brothers and Sister, I’m 
going to reduce the firm name to Faraday Broth- 
ers, and Jeannette and I are going to be the silent 
partners in the enterprise. I’ve my own reasons 
for that. I’m going with you, but only as a silent 
partner in the firm who takes no part in its active 
operations. Jeannette, too, is going with you, but 
she, like me, is to have no share in the work. So 
she and I will take only such share as we are en- 
titled to in the profits of the expedition, while you 
boys shall have your own shares and your salaries 
for service in addition.” 

Still the boys did not know what it was that the 
little doctor planned to do. And he resolutely re- 
fued to tell them. 

As they went down stream from Alton to St. 
Louis, their steamboat, which had come out of the 
upper Mississippi, raced unsuccessfully with two 
boats that had come out of the Missouri. Observ- 
ing these Ed asked : 

“ Why is it that they are so lightly loaded? ” 


98 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Ah,” answered the doctor, “ that tells the story. 
People by scores of thousands are going up 
these rivers to open farms there and nearly no- 
body is coming back. That is why all the boats 
bound up stream are black with passengers, while 
those coming down have almost none. Then 
again, St. Louis is sending these settlers the 
things they need — farm implements, tools, nails, 
dry goods, and a year’s supply of provisions. 
That loads all the up-bound boats to the water’s 
edge. But as yet the farms up there haven’t be- 
gun to produce things for sale. The newly set- 
tled ones have growing crops, but no surplus for 
sale as yet, and those that have been settled for a 
few years, besides being only partly under cultiva- 
tion, find a pretty fair market for their products in 
the little towns near them. But all that will be 
changed very soon. Every year these farms up 
the river will produce more and more, and all of 
their surplus will be sent down the river for sale 
at St. Louis. And in return St. Louis will sell to 
them great quantities of goods, increasing every 
year. Then again, the St. Louis merchants will 
ship all this produce of the up-river farms down 
the river to New Orleans, where much of it will 
be sold to planters in the South, while the rest of 
it will be sent across the seas to other countries 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 199 

from which we import the things needed in this 
country, which the people of those countries can 
make better or cheaper than we can. That is 
commerce. It is an elaborate and complicated 
system by which men all over the world exchange 
their products to the advantage of all of them. 

“Just think of it! The farmer away up the 
Missouri River raises more corn than he needs. 
He feeds it to hogs, and thus converts it into 
pork. He sells the pork to a St. Louis merchant, 
who sends it to New Orleans. There it is bought 
by planters in Mississippi or Alabama or Arkan- 
sas, who feed their field-hands upon it. They pay 
for it with cotton, and the cotton is sold to Eng- 
land or New England, where spinners or weavers 
convert it into cloth. The cloth is sent back for 
sale, and the farmer up on the Missouri River 
buys it to make shirts for himself and gowns for 
his wife and daughters. He gets it for a few cents 
a yard, while he couldn’t make it for himself at 
any price. That’s the way commerce benefits 
everybody. 

“ It is much more complex than that, of course; 
but my illustration will suggest the rest. The 
farmer up the Missouri River has coffee and 
sugar and tea on his table. He couldn’t produce 
any of those things to save his life. By direct 


200 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


trade the farmer simply could not exchange his 
corn, wheat, pork, onions, potatoes, and the like, 
for these things. But under a complex system ot 
commerce the merchant is able to make the ex- 
change for him at a cost so small that he doesn’t 
feel it. Neither do the producers of the things he 
buys. The profits of the merchants and carriers 
are simply the price that people all over the world 
pay for the privilege of exchanging their products 
with each other, so that all shall be the better 
and the happier because of the work that the 
others do.” 

“ Yes, Theodore explained to us up the river 
that that is the service commerce renders,” said 
Allan reflectively. 

“ Part of it,” answered the doctor, “ but only a 
small part. Incidentally it gives work and wages 
to tens of thousands — yes, hundreds of thousands 
of clerks, laborers, draymen, steamboat men, sail- 
ors, ship-builders, wheelbarrow makers, rope- 
makers, tar-producers, nail-makers, sawmill hands, 
and others. I said hundreds of thousands; if I 
had said millions, I should have been well within 
the mark ; for thefe are to be considered all the pro- 
ducers of the materials used by the classes named. 
There are the timber cutters, the iron and coal min- 
ers, the coke-burners, the steel-makers, the fabricat- 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 201 


ors of tools, the painters and the makers of paint, 
and hundreds of other classes of men, all of whom 
are helped, by the demands of commerce, to put 
bread and butter into the mouths of their wives 
and children. 

“ I could suggest other ways by the hundred in 
which commerce benefits men, but I have men- 
tioned enough. Still, there remains the greatest 
service of all to be considered. That is that com- 
merce requires peace, and breeds peace.” 

“ How do you mean, doctor? ” asked Ed. 

“ Why, when nations get to trading with each 
other on a large scale they can not afford to fight 
each other. If they make war, they must stop 
trading, and all their people who depend, even in 
the remotest way, upon commerce for their living 
must fall into want.” 

“ But there are wars still,” said Theodore. 

“ Yes, unhappily there are. But they are always 
mistakes, and they are growing fewer and fewer 
and shorter and shorter because of the necessities 
of commerce. They’ll cease entirely by and by, 
just as surely as the sun rises and sets. States- 
men will learn after a while — indeed they are learn- 
ing now — that by interrupting trade war griev- 
ously afflicts the people who depend upon trade 
for their bread and butter, and they are learning, 


202 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


too, that, after all, the people rule. Little by little 
people are learning that war ruins their business 
and robs them of their means of living. They 
will some day insist that there shall be no more 
wars, and that international disputes shall be set- 
tled just as personal disputes are now, by the 
decision of some court that can compel both sides 
to accept its decisions and abide by them.” 

“ And just see how great a part St. Louis and 
this vast river system are playing in commerce,” 
said Theodore, rising as the boat neared the town 
and pointing toward the levee. “ There lie steam- 



LEVEE SCENE 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S IDEAS 203 

boats three deep in front of three miles of levee. 
They ply to every part of the river. They come 
from the Missouri, the upper Mississippi, the lower 
Mississippi, the Ohio, the Cumberland, the Ten- 
nessee, the Arkansas, the Red River, the Yazoo, 
and everywhere else. There’s a little dinky steam- 
boat that runs up the Yalobusha. And there’s 
another, named The Only Chance , that goes up the 
St. Francis. There are steamboats here that to- 
gether cover every mile of the sixteen thousand 
which constitute the navigable length of this river 
system, and every one of them carries freight both 
ways. It’s a splendid thought, doctor, that they 
are all ministers of peace and civilization, aiding 
in that interchange of commodities upon which 
all men, the earth over, depend for their comfort.” 

But by this time the steamboat on which the 
party traveled was making her landing, and all 
were busy getting their baggage in readiness for 
the going ashore. 

“ Now, one thing must be settled,” said the little 
doctor. “ Where am I to meet you to-morrow or 
whenever I please? It will take me about three 
days to arrange my affairs.” 

Theodore named a boarding-house where he 
had engaged rooms for himself and Jeannette, 
the other boys electing to go to much cheaper 


204 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


quarters of their own choice. Theodore had 
wanted to share these cheaper quarters, but the 
others had said him Nay. 

“ One of us three,” they had insisted, “ must go 
with Jeannette, and she must be well housed. 
You are the right one to go. So there’s an end 
of that.” 

Then the little doctor arranged to meet Theo- 
dore at the insurance office on the next day, and 
so they parted. 



THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 

On their way down the river Allan had held a 
private conversation with the little old doctor con- 
cerning poor Joe. 

“ I’ve an idea, doctor, that we might do some- 
thing for Joe. I once read in ‘Chambers’s Mis- 
cellany ’ or somewhere else about a sailor who had 
fallen from the masthead and received a wound 
which caused a part of his skull to press upon the 
brain. The story went that for twelve years after- 
ward the poor sailor was more or less demented, 
and that at the end of that time a surgeon removed 
or raised the bit of bone. Thereupon the sailor 
instantly resumed his consciousness at the point 
at which it had left off, calling out as if still falling 
from the masthead, ‘Look out, boys, I’m coming! ’ 
Now, poor Joe is obviously a man who once had a 
good brain. He has a dent in his skull caused by 
the blow of the falling beam, and I’ve an idea that 
his hesitation in speech and his mental incapacity 
generally are due to a pressure upon the brain. 
Joe is so capable, you know, when he is able to 

205 



20 6 RUNNING THE RIVER 

collect his wits that this seems to me almost cer- 
tain.” 

“ I have little doubt that you’re right, boy. At 
any rate, it seems to me a good diagnosis. I’ll get 
up a little phrenology seance this evening. I’ll 
examine your head and Jeannette’s and then 
I’ll examine Joe’s. After that I shall be able to 
tell you what I think.” 

As soon after the seance as it was possible for 
the doctor to talk with Allan privately, he said : 

“ I haven’t the slightest doubt in the world that 
Joe’s whole difficulty comes from a pressure on 
the brain caused by that dent in his skull. At any 
rate, when we get to St. Louis, if you can manage 
to get Joe to submit to an examination, and pos- 
sibly an operation, I’ll find the best man in St. 
Louis to judge of the case and treat it. I can’t 
imagine any better gift that could be made to a 
man than the giving back to him of his intellect 
after it has been lost.” 

So when the party arrived at St. Louis the doc- 
tor’s first real care was to consult with eminent 
surgeons there concerning Joe’s case, and Joe in 
his submissive way presented himself to the sur- 
geons for the necessary examination. 

Then the doctor reported to Allan. He said: 

“ You impudent young jackanapes, you’ve made 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 207 

a splendid diagnosis in a case in which even I, 
little old doctor that I am, was in doubt. The 
great surgeons here agreed with you, and if you 
boys choose to stand the expense we’ll have an 
operation on Joe’s head. Of course I’m a partner 
now, and I’ll stand my part of the expense; but 
we’re going to do things from this time forth on 
business principles.” 

“ All right, doctor,” said Allan, “ well do any- 
thing we can for Joe, and certainly well stand 
sponsors for the expense of any operation that 
promises to restore his mind to sanity. All I ask 
is that you shall take charge of the case yourself 
and superintend the operation, seeing to it that 
Joe shall not be made the victim of a mere scien- 
tific experiment, but shall be treated with refer- 
ence to his own recovery.” 

During all their stay upon the Illinois River the 
boys and Jeannette had been cheered by letters 
from their father reporting his continued improve- 
ment and his expectation of ultimate recovery. 
These letters had not been written by himself. 
The explanation was that the injury to his eyes 
had been such as to prevent his writing in per- 
son. Their first care upon reaching St. Louis 
was to go to him and find out exactly what his 
condition was. To their distress and horror they 


208 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


learned that he was almost entirely blind. He 
had lovingly concealed the fact from them in dic- 
tating their letters, but it was a fact nevertheless, 
and one which was relieved by very slight hope 
indeed. His eyes had been burned and scalded 
to such an extent that their sight was practically 
gone, and none of the surgeons in St. Louis could 
promise recovery even as a probable outcome of 
any treatment. 

On the evening after the little doctor had ar- 
ranged the insurance affairs in company with 
Theodore, the boys summoned him to Theodore’s 
room and asked him what was possible to be done 
on their father’s behalf. 

“Well now, I’ll tell you, boys,” said the little 
doctor. “ I do not believe the case is hopeless at 
all. I’ve examined it and I have my own opinion. 
The only trouble is that we have no great eye 
specialists in St. Louis at this time, and, in fact, 
there are none as yet in our country. We shall 
have them after a while, you may be sure, be- 
cause we are going to have everything in this 
country that is good; but at present we have 
none. Now, I happen to know a great eye spe- 
cialist in Paris — he was a fellow-student with me 
half a lifetime ago — and I’d like to have him 
undertake the treatment of your father’s eyes. If 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 209 

you boys will be sensible enough to let me do it, 
I’ll send your father to that specialist at my own 
expense, and ” 

“ But, doctor, if you’ll send him we’ll pay the 
expense.” 

“ Yes and cripple yourselves for life by spending 
your capital just when you need it,” said the little 
doctor. “ Now, let me explain to you. I am a 
little old fellow with nobody on the face of the 
earth to care for, and I’ve got more money than I 
want. You boys and Jeannette and I are good 
friends — at least we have been pretending to be. 
Now the question is, Are we good friends or are 
we only pretending? If we are good friends, then 
you’ll let me do this thing myself. If we aren’t 
good friends, then I have no interest in the mat- 
ter, and I won’t even give you the name of the 
oculist to whom I intend to send your father. 
Come now, be men, stand up to the rack, sacrifice 
your wretched little pride and prejudice. Prove 
yourselves to be the friends you profess to be and 
let me do this thing.” 

“ But our father himself would object to that,” 
said Theodore. 

“ That’s all right,” said the doctor. “We can 
arrange that. It is a doctor’s business always to 

let a sick man think he is having his own way and 
14 


210 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


at the same time to see to it that the doctor has 
his own way. I can manage that perfectly easily. 
I will make a little estimate of the cost of sending 
your father to Paris, then I’ll buy a certain scarf- 
pin that Jeannette wears sometimes, and to which 
I have taken a great fancy. I have told her so lots 
of times, and she has not offered to give it to me, so 
I’ll buy it. She can go on wearing it, of course, but 
it shall be my property, and for that scarf-pin I’m 
going to give you a check sufficient to cover the 
expense of sending your father over there to Paris 
for treatment. Now, isn’t that a nice little arrange- 
ment? And he can know that it is his own little 
girl who is paying his expenses, and he needn’t feel 
in the least degree under obligation to anybody.” 

The little doctor chuckled at the ingenuity of 
his own device, but the boys did not know how to 
deal with his suggestion. They broke in with 
protests of every kind, but he allowed no protest 
to be presented. He cut each one off in its be- 
ginning by some interruption, and in the end they 
were made to understand that the little doctor was 
going to do this thing and that they might as well 
submit. Their concern for their father’s sight 
was so great that at last they made up their minds 
to let the little doctor do as he would, and so the 
matter was arranged. 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 21 1 


Before the week was out the father was on his way 
to Paris — a much more formidable journey in those 
days than it is now — in personal charge of a young 
physician whom the little doctor had employed to 
accompany him and into whose hands he had placed 
letters of introduction to the Paris specialist. Before 
the week was out too, Joe had been operated upon 
in a hospital under the little doctor’s supervision, 
and the prospect was that his brain action would be 
restored by the operation to its normal condition. 

During the intervening days the little doctor 
had busied himself arranging for the further oper- 
ations of the firm of Faraday Brothers and Sister, 
or rather the firm of Faraday Brothers ; for, as we 
have seen, it was his purpose to withdraw Jean- 
nette from active participation of the work of that 
little business house. 

Not until his plans were complete did he report 
upon them to the boys. Then he summoned 
them and said: 

“ With the increased capital of the firm I have 
found and bought the little sternwheel steamboat 
that we need. We are going to put on board of 
her a stock of goods suited to the trade that we 
are going into.” 

“ What trade is it, doctor?” asked Ed, with his 
always ready interrogation. 


212 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


"Well, Theodore and I have settled that. We 
are going down the Mississippi to the mouth of 
the Red River and thence up the Red River to 
the raft. We’ll trade with the people along the 
shore as we go — not the Mississippi shore, but 
with the people up the Red River. You see, this 
is what Theodore and I have in mind. There are 
many great planters up in that region, and they 
have all their business arrangements made. They 
ship their cotton, or their sugar, or their molasses, 
to New Orleans, and they order from New Or- 
leans all the goods they want for the support of 
themselves, their families, and the people on their 
plantations. But there is a still greater number 
of small planters, men who make only a few bales 
of cotton and a few barrels of molasses each. 
Those people have no permanent arrangement 
with commission merchants, either for the sale of 
their products or for the purchase of supplies. 
They trade wherever they can. Right there is a 
need, and it is the business of shrewd merchants 
to find needs and meet them. We are going to 
meet that need. We are going to stop along at 
the small plantations, furnish such supplies as are 
needed, from calico and cottonade to bacon and 
flour, and take in exchange such cotton and mo- 
lasses and sugar as the little plantations have been 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 213 

able to produce. We’ll carry a lot of jimcracks 
along for the darkies, who have a little money that 
they want to spend ; but our main business will 
be to buy with goods that they want the products 
of these small planters. 

“When we get through with the Red River, we 
will go to New Orleans and market the cotton we 
have bought. Then we will come to St. Louis 
again with the sugar and molasses because here is 
the best market for those things. Our little stern- 
wheel steamboat is of very light draught and will 
carry an immensity of freight.” 

“ But, doctor, what does a sternwheel steamboat 
cost?” asked Ed. 

“ Never mind about that. After we start we 
will make up the books. Anyhow she doesn’t 
cost more than this firm can afford. The impor- 
tant thing is for you boys to purchase for the firm 
the goods that we shall want to exchange with the 
planters for their sugar, their molasses, and their 
cotton. You’ve got to get to work at that at once. 
Bear in mind that they want first of all jimcracks; 
secondly, gaudy calicoes and high-colored dress 
goods of every kind for the women folk, and some 
dress goods of a better sort for the planters’ wives 
and their daughters. Then they want guns— shot- 
guns, rifles, and pistols — together with an abun- 


214 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


dant supply of ammunition. You see, in a coun- 
try like that the gun is second in importance only 
to the hoe or the plow. Next after that come pro- 
visions. We want a lot of flour, a great quantity 
of bacon and hams, about fifty barrels or so of 
salt, a big lot of pickled pork, four or five hundred 
little kegs of cove oysters — for people who live 
away off in the interior always imagine that they 
are enjoying the luxuries of the Eastern coast when 
they fish those little bits of leather called cove 
oysters out of the milky blue liquid in which they 
swim, and eat them under the impression that 
they are rejoicing in something nearly akin to 
oysters on the half-shell. 

“ Then another thing is sardines. Do not fail 
to have a big supply of sardines in quarter boxes. 
By the way, did it ever occur to you that there 
must be many millions of dollars invested in sar- 
dines and cove oysters merely by way of supply- 
ing the different little country stores in this great 
land of ours with those comestibles? Think of it, 
there are ten or twenty thousand — perhaps fifty 
thousand — little country stores scattered all over 
our land, to say nothing of the still more numer- 
ous groceries in the big cities, and every one of 
them must carry a stock of sardines and cove oys- 
ters. Now, suppose each of them carries only a 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 215 

dozen cans of each, just reckon it up in your heads 
and see what an immense investment of money 
there must be in these two articles of human con- 
sumption. All that money is invested upon the 
confidence of the men who invest it that they 
know what will sell and what won’t. Isn’t it 
striking? Yet that’s the merchant’s business. 

“ Now come, you boys have got to get to work 
in the morning putting a stock of goods aboard 
the boat.” 

The little doctor had succeeded in diverting in- 
quiry from those channels which he did not wish 
it to follow. 

“ But, doctor,” said Ed, “ what about the crew? ” 

“ Why, that is to be Theodore’s business. He’s 
to be captain, and he must hire the necessary 
crew. We shall need only one pilot after we 
reach the mouth of the Red River, as we shall 
not be traveling day and night, and never for 
more than a few hours at a time. We shall need 
only one engineer and a striker to assist him for 
the same reason. We shan’t be traveling as a 
steamboat ordinarily does, and so won’t need more 
than two or three firemen — at least until we have 
sold out our goods and accumulated a cargo to be 
taken to New Orleans or brought to St. Louis. 

“ Now for the rest of it. We shall need a good 


2l6 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


cook. I’ll attend to that, because I know an old 
darky woman down here who can cook anything in 
the best way in the world. She told me to-day that 
her old man had met with an accident and was 
laid up. I’ve already hired her, so never mind 
about that. She’ll cook for us and for the crew, 
for, you see, I’m going along, with Jeannette, and 
we’ll be the only passengers on the boat. The 
rest of you fellows will have to work. Allan is to 
be first clerk and Ed second clerk. Oh, I tell you 
we shall manage this thing superbly if we do not 
run on a snag in the Red River, for that’s the 
only danger there is there. There are more snags 
to the square inch in the Red River perhaps than 
in any other water that ever flowed. 

“ I’ll tell you about that after a while, but now 
we’re going to attend to business. By the way, 
that reminds me of a story they tell of a pilot who 
had a job to take a steamboat down to the mouth 
of the Red River. There the captain hoped to 
find a Red River pilot, but none was to be had. 
Thereupon his Mississippi River pilot who had 
brought him down that far concluded that he 
would like the job of taking the boat up the Red 
River. So night and day he pleaded for that priv- 
ilege. The captain doubted his knowledge of the 
Red River, and particularly of its snags. He 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 217 

questioned the pilot closely, and was assured at 
every question that the pilot knew 'every snag in 
Red River.’ Finally the captain agreed to engage 
him for the business. Just as they started up the 
river the captain, still uneasy in his doubt of the 
pilot’s knowledge, called up to him in the pilot 
house and said, ‘Bill, are you sure you know this 
river? ’ 

“‘Why, yes, captain,’ answered the pilot; ‘I 
know where every snag in this river is.’ At that 
moment the boat ran upon a sawyer which thrust 
itself up through the hull and cabin of the boat 
and interposed itself between the captain on the 
forward deck and the pilot in the pilot-house. 

“‘There, captain,’ said Bill, ‘I told you I knew 
where every snag in this river was, and there s one 
of them now .’ 

“ There is a moral to that,” said the little doctor, 
“and that is that we must insure ourselves as 
heavily as possible against the loss of our boat by 
marine risk. That is really the only danger. We 
can take care of all the rest. I’ll arrange that 
with the insurance company, and so that’s all 
right. All there is to do is to get to work just as 
quickly as possible to load this boat down to the 
guards with the goods that are wanted for the Red 
River trade. As soon as that is done, we’ll be off. 


2l8 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“Now, Jeannette, I’ve a little commission for 
you to attend to. Here’s a list of things that I 
want you to put on board. You are not to tell the 
boys anything about it, and you’re not to raise 
any questions. Just go and buy everything I have 
put on this list, and see to it that they are all on 
board. Are you a good girl, Jeannette? Will 
you obey orders? You see, while your father is 
away I am to be your guardian and a father to you, 
and you must obey me as you would obey him.” 

Jeannette glanced at the list of things and said: 

“ But, doctor ” 

“ Do not but me any buts,” said the doctor, “ I 
know what you would say. Now I’ve had some ex- 
perience in equipping schools up there in Illinois, 
and you and I are going to have the best school 
that exists in this Western country, and it’s going 
to be on board that boat. I’m going to be the 
teacher, and you are going to be the school. I 
told you I was going to educate you, but really, 
my dear child, I am too old and too — but you 
won’t let me plead rheumatism after that little 
jaunt of mine over the thwarts — but too some- 
thing or other to attend to these purchases. So 
you are to see that they are all put on board. Now 
I’ve got to go off to see how poor old Joe is 
getting on.” 


THE LITTLE DOCTOR’S DOINGS 219 

The boys and Jeannette were full of things they 
wanted to say, of questions they wanted to ask, 
and of protests they wanted to make; but the 
little doctor hustled so, and hurried so, and so in- 
sisted upon his anxiety to get to the hospital at 
once that they had no opportunity to make a 
complaint or enter a protest or even to express 
gratitude for all that he was doing for them. It 
was clearly a case in which the little doctor had 
made himself master of the situation. 



CHAPTER XXII 

joe’s case and chalk 

Every day the little doctor went to the hospital 
to look after poor Joe. On some days he went 
twice or thrice, but this lasted for only a brief 
while. Finally one evening he came in and said: 

“ Joe’s all right. It is the fifth day, and that 
settles it.” 

“ How do you mean, doctor? ” 

“ Why, when this kind of an operation, which 
we call trephining, is performed, the only serious 
danger is of a destructive inflammation of what we 
doctors call the pia mater. You boys would call 
that ‘peeahmahter,’ but, you see, I am old-fash- 
ioned. I pronounce my Latin in the English 
way. Never mind about that. As I was saying, 
the only serious danger in a trephining operation 
is that of a destructive inflammation of the pia 
mater. If that is going to occur at all, it occurs 
within from three to five days. Five days have 
passed, and Joe’s head is as sound as a nut so far 
as that is concerned.” 

All the boys were delighted to hear this good 
220 


JOE’S CASE AND CHALK 


12 


news of Joe. They had observed the little doctor 
after each visit and had discovered easily enough 
that he had some anxiety on the poor fellow’s 
account. Now that this was gone, they were 
relieved. 

“ But, doctor,” said Ed the questioner, “ is the 
operation going to do him any good? ” 

“Well, it has already restored his mind, and 
when he comes out ” 

“ How long will it be, doctor, before he can 
come out ? ” 

“ A fortnight or three weeks if everything goes 
well; four weeks at the extreme outside. He’s a 
healthy man fortunately, and has never impaired 
his constitution by any bad habits, so his recovery 
promises to be perfect and very rapid. I wonder 
who he is, by the way, and what he is? Where 
did you boys pick him up? ” 

“We know nothing about him,” said Theodore, 
“ except that when the brutal mate, Billy Patter- 
son, was trying to brain him, we boys committed 
piracy I suppose, although it was not on the high 
seas. We knocked Billy Patterson down and 
saved the poor fellow’s life.” 

“ Quite right. There are times, I think, when 
piracy, or even manslaughter, is a virtue. In 
dealing with Billy Patterson I fancy either would 


222 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


be so. But tell me, how did Joe come to be with 
you ? What’s his name ? ” 

“ I do not at all know what his other name is. 
I never heard him called anything but Joe. But 
the way he came to be with us was that after we 
landed up there below Peoria he jumped over- 
board from the steamboat, swam ashore, and came 
to us. We really do not know what we should 
have done in building the store-boat but for his 
assistance. He told us he had been a ship car- 
penter. At least that is what we made out of his 
jerky little phrases. He simply attached himself 
to us, and he has been with us ever since. Allan 
conceived the notion of trying to restore his mind 

by this kind of an operation, and ” 

“ Yes, and the young jackanapes made a first- 
class diagnosis. I will never forgive him for that 
while I live. What business has he going around 
diagnosticating cases when he never studied med- 
icine for a day in his life? I tell you it discredits 
the profession. It puts us at a disadvantage. 
But, then, I can’t forget the facts in the case of 
the celebrated John Hunter. He was by all odds 
the most distinguished physiologist and surgeon 
who has ever lived. He was so celebrated indeed 
that his word was law not only with the public, but 
with the profession as well. He was the supreme 


JOE’S CASE AND CHALK 223 

man, in fact, in surgery, when one day somebody 
discovered the fact that he had no doctor’s degree 
at all. He was called doctor, but he was not an 
M.D. This situation so far reflected upon the 
profession that the medical colleges everywhere 
clamorously begged Dr. Hunter to accept their 
diplomas. 

“Still, I do not think any medical college ought 
to make a doctor out of Allan until he has had 
a course of study. You see, John Hunter had 
studied medicine as thoroughly as anybody else in 
his time, although at twenty years of age he could 
barely read and write. The only difference was 
that he did not bother himself to make his studies 
in the regular fashion, and so he had not taken a 
degree. Do not run away with the notion that 
a degree means nothing. In medicine it means a 
good deal even now, and some day it will mean 
vastly more. Never mind about that. The ques- 
tion is, What are we going to do with Joe? He’s 
going to be perfectly sane when that hole in his 
head heals up, and we’ve got to do something 
toward putting him in the way of making a living. 
The surgeon won’t let him talk yet, so I’ve got 
nothing out of him. He’ll be well enough to con- 
sider his future before we can get away from here, 
for you boys are awfully slow in getting things on 


224 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


board the boat. No, I oughtn’t to complain of 
you, for it is not true and it is not just. What I 
should say is that it takes a good while to equip a 
boat for such an enterprise as we are undertaking, 
and Joe will be up and about before we sail. Isn’t 
it funny how we use that word ‘sail ’ simply be- 
cause boats used always to go by sails? We call it 
sailing, not only when the steamship goes out of 
the harbor, but when a steamboat leaves her port. 
Now, Joe has got to find himself in some way. 
We do not know what he can do and I have not 
ventured yet to ask him, because the surgeons do 
not want him to use that brain of his till things 
have gone a little further on the road to recovery. 
I’ll look after that a little later.” 

Thereupon Jeannette broke in saying: 

“It seems to me, doctor, that everything that 
requires looking after falls to you.” 

“ Not at all,” said the doctor. “ The boys are 
loading the boat. I do not know what they are 
buying, or even where they are buying it.” 

“Well, now,” said Jeannette, “ I’ll answer that 
by using your own phrase, ‘Never mind about 
that.’ But you are the dearest and best little old 
doctor that ever a lot of boys and a girl had for 
their partner.” 

“Well, never mind about that,” said the doctor. 


JOE’S CASE AND CHALK 225 

“ What I want to know is what kind of chalk 
you’ve bought for use on the blackboards?” 

“Just ordinary chalk,” said Jeannette. 

“ In lumps? ” asked the doctor. 

“ Yes, of course; I never saw any other kind.” 

“ Throw it all into the river,” said the doctor, 
“ and to-morrow you are to go down to a stationer 
on Olive Street, whose address I will give you, 
and buy six or eight boxes of chalk crayons. Be 
sure that you get those that are armed with paper 
covers on their upper ends. They are a new 
thing, and I am not going to have you spoil your 
hands by handling common chalk. Good-night. 
I’ve got to go home now and go to sleep.” 

That was always the doctor’s way. If there 
was any one thing more than all others to which 
he would not be subjected, that one thing was 

thanks or compliments. 
i5 



CHAPTER XXIII 

joe’s interference with plans 

It had taken three weeks for the boys to select 
their cargo discreetly and get it on board the little 
stermvheel steamer which the doctor had provided 
as his contribution to the common venture. The 
time to start was at hand, and the only considera- 
tion which delayed it now was the question of 
arranging things for Joe before the boat should 
leave. 

At that critical moment Joe took things into his 
own hands. He appeared on board the little 
steamboat one day with his mind clear and with 
the appearance of a man superior in intellect to 
anything that they had imagined with regard to 
him. He went all over the boat. He inspected 
everything with a careful eye. Then he said : 

“ You can’t sail yet. Your boat isn’t in shape. 
You’ve been swindled in buying her.” 

It was noticeable that Joe no longer ended his 
sentences with the phrase “that’s all.” Joe had 
recovered himself, and his intellect was at work 
again. He had also recovered his name, which 

226 


JOE’S INTERFERENCE 


227 

he had forgotten during that long eclipse of his 
mind. He was Captain Joseph Wyatt, an experi- 
enced ship-builder, and when he inspected a 
steamboat he knew perfectly the meaning of 
everything that he found in her. He said to the 
boys: 

“ I want to talk with you a little bit about this 
boat before you cast her loose from the wharf. 
Can I see you together at your room to-night, 
Theodore?” The meeting was promptly ar- 
ranged, and all were summoned to be present to 
hear what it was that Joe had to say. When they 
met in the evening, Joe began by telling his own 
story. 

“ I am a ship-builder,” he said. “ I was in 
charge of the works at New Albany — up the Ohio 
— for a long time, and your boat was built there. 
She was a sham from the beginning. I do not 
say that there is no good work in her. There is, 
but it lacks certain things to make it satisfactory. 
I do not know what I told you up the river when 
my mind was clouded, and you mustn’t reckon 
upon that as meaning anything. The way I got 
my hurt was this. When your little steamboat 
was building, I had a quarrel with the man in 
charge of it. He insisted upon putting into it a 
good deal of work which I knew to be unsafe. I 


228 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


refused to put that work into it, because I did not 
want a whole lot of people to be drowned some 
day because of bad building on my part. The 
thing led to blows between him and me. He 
struck me with something, and that’s all I re- 
member until the time when Billy Patterson 
struck me up there in the Illinois River and you 
boys saved me from him. My memory of all 
that passed after that is vague and uncertain, so 
please do not hold me responsible for it. My 
head’s clear now, and I do not want you to go off 
down the river in a steamboat that I know to be 
unsafe. The repairs necessary to make her safe 
can be made within a comparatively few days, and 
I am ready to make them.” 

“ But where, Joe?” asked Jeannette. 

“ At my shipyard down here below St. Louis.” 

“ But what shipyard, Joe? ” 

“ Why, my brother and I own a shipyard here. 
I never knew anything about it till I came out of 
my dream. You see, the way of it was this: He 
and I worked together there at New Albany, and 
we had an interest in the business — a pretty large 
interest, in fact. When I got hurt, he had himself 
appointed my guardian, and he took his money 
and mine and with it established this little ship- 
yard down here. He tells me now that I ran 


JOE’S INTERFERENCE 


229 


away from him and shipped on the river as ‘ Poor 
Joe.’ He tried to follow me up and bring me 
back, but he did not succeed. It was only when 
the newspapers reported the operation upon my 
head and the recovery of my sanity in conse- 
quence that he learned where I was. But at the 
same time I have been all the while a full partner 
in this little ship-building business of his and 
mine. 

“ Now, if you’ll let me, I’m going to move your 
boat down to the shipyard, take the cargo out of 
her, haul her up on the ways, and put her into 
such shape that you can start off down the river, 
feeling that you have a stanch boat under you.” 

To say that the boys were astonished is to put 
the matter mildly. They had supposed that they 
had a good steamboat, and so had the little doctor 
when he had bought her at a price so small that 
he had himself asked for an explanation. The 
explanation given was that the owner was in ill- 
health and obliged to retire from business. The 
doctor afterward learned that so far from retiring 
from business he was building a new boat with 
which to navigate some of the smaller tributaries 
of the Mississippi, and was, in fact, as actively in 
business as ever. He had simply worked off on 
the little doctor a steamboat so defective that he 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


03° 

had always been obliged to pay a bribe to the gov- 
ernment inspectors in order even to get a license 
for her to run at all. 

“ But the whole thing can be fixed up,” said Joe, 
“within a very few days. It only means the put- 
ting in of a few bulkheads to strengthen her, and 
there you are. Then, if you will allow me, I’m 
going with you. The doctors say I ought to go 
away for a time and rest, and my brother is amply 
able to take care of our little business there while 
I am gone. I have a fancy to go up the Red 
River with you, and I’m going as your pilot’s ad- 
viser and assistant — not from here, no. From here 
you must have a Mississippi pilot to the mouth 
of the Red River. From there up I will direct the 
steering of the boat and tell your pilot what to do.” 

“ But do you know the Red River, Joe? ” asked 
Theodore, who had not yet quite realized the ex- 
tent of restoration that had been wrought in Joe’s 
mind. 

“ No,” answered Joe, “ I do not know the Red 
River. Neither does anybody else. But I know 
as much about it as anybody else does. Let me 
explain to you. There is never any lack of water 
in the Red River — at least for so light a boat as 
yours. That isn’t the trouble. The pilot who 
takes a boat up that river is not bothered in keep- 


JOE’S INTERFERENCE 231 

mg off sandbars and the like— at least, if he knows 
deep water when he sees it. His sole trouble is 
to avoid running his boat on snags. You see, the 
Red River is full of snags. It is fuller of snags 
than any other river in the world I suppose. 
They break away from the raft up there at 
Shreveport and float down and anchor themselves 
anywhere they choose. 

“ There is no use in ‘ knowing the river,’ so far 
as they are concerned, because every day they 
change their positions and every day new ones ap- 
pear. You can’t mark them, and you can’t make 
any history of them, and you can’t depend upon 
what anybody tells you about them. There are 
places in the river where to-day it is deep, clear 
water, and to-morrow half a dozen sawyers are 
swinging up and down and threatening every boat 
that approaches them. Now, in such a river as 
that the one thing that a pilot can do is to keep 
his eye open, run slow, and look out for unex- 
pected snags. I took out a license as pilot up 
there once, and I can become a licensed pilot, 
again. I have only to pay five dollars in gold for 
my license. Now I’m going with you because I 
understand you and you understand me, and be- 
cause I need six months of rest. I may take a 
good deal longer time to get up the river than 


232 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


your other pilot would — for, of course, you’ll have 
one on board for the sake of regularity; but at 
any rate I won’t let you go to the bottom, and, be- 
lieve me, in the Red River that’s the main thing.” 

Joe’s verdict about the boat was a sad disap- 
pointment to the boys for the reason that it meant 
delay. Still, the repairs meant all the difference 
between success and failure in their voyage, and 
when the boat was hauled out upon the ways at 
the little shipyard and the boys saw what had to 
be done to her, they fully understood that if they 
had sailed on her as she had been at first the 
chances of their getting even to the Red River 
would have been very small indeed. 

The repairs occupied a very few days, and Joe 
devoted himself to the task of seeing that they 
should be made in a thorough way, rendering the 
boat entirely seaworthy. 

Then her cargo was replaced upon her and the 
little party started off down the river on their 
trading voyage. 


<D 

CHAPTER XXIV 

THE FIRST NIGHT OF THE VOYAGE 

It was a beautiful afternoon when the little steam- 
boat Blue Wing , with her cargo again on board, 
backed out from the Wyatt Brothers’ shipyard 
and started down the river. During all the day- 
light hours that remained the boys, the little 
doctor, Jeannette, and Joe — for he would not let 
them call him Captain Wyatt — sat upon the hurri- 
cane deck looking at the shores as they slid by. 

“ This,” said the doctor, “ is the only picturesque 
part of the river that we shall traverse — I mean 
the part from here to Cairo. It is historical also, 
but that is no matter now. The thing I would 
call your attention to is that from here to Cairo 
we are passing through high lands, with Tower 
Rock and other notable landmarks to give pictur- 
esqueness to the river.” 

“ I don’t agree with you at all, doctor,” said 
Allan, “ unless you and I give different meanings 
to the word picturesque. I made a trip down this 

river once with my father and I thought it pictur- 
233 


^34 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


esque clear to the mouth, or at least clear to New 
Orleans, which is as far as I went.” 

“ That is true,” said the doctor, “ and I used my 
word carelessly. I meant to say that this part of 
the river between St. Louis and Cairo is the only 
part below St. Louis, with the exception of the 
bluffs at Memphis and Vicksburg, in which the 
landscape presents what the architects call a sky- 
line. The rest of it is low and flat and more or 
less monotonous ; but as you suggest, Allan, there 
may be not only picturesqueness, but a good deal 
of beauty in a thoroughly monotonous landscape. 
Sometimes, indeed, the artists who love to go 
along seashores and paint sand-dunes and things 
of that kind pick out for their subjects the lowest, 
flattest, and most monotonous landscapes that 
they can find. After all, it is only a question of 
what a landscape suggests to you and what it makes 
you feel.” 

“Well,” said Allan, and he laughed a little at 
himself as he said it, “ you know I have a habit of 
always 'wanting to know, you know,’ and so I 
have been reading up pretty diligently about the 
lower Mississippi River, that part of it which lies 
below Cairo. The scientific people tell us that the 
Mississippi River created all that country. They 
say that the Gulf of Mexico many thousands of 


rHE FIRST NIGHT 


235 


years ago came clear up to Cairo, with now and 
then an island or a group of islands in it. I sup- 
pose that Memphis and Vicksburg represent two 
of these islands, but the rest of that region was all 
water once, and it has been slowly built up into 
land by the river.” 

“ But how? ” asked Jeannette. 

“ Why, you know how muddy this Mississippi 
River water is, and you know we had to bring 
filters along in order to render it drinkable. Fur- 
ther than that, you know that if you set a tumbler- 
ful of it on a table and let it sit there for half an 
hour there is from half an inch to an inch of mud 
in the bottom of it. That means that this water 
is carrying all the time more mud than it can dis- 
solve, and is constantly losing some of it by drop- 
ping it to the bottom. Now, when the Gulf of 
Mexico came all the way up to Cairo, the river 
running into the gulf naturally deposited a lot of 
mud at its outlet. After a while this mud made land 
there, very low, marshy land, but still land, and vege- 
tation grew upon it and gradually raised its level.” 

“ But how does vegetation raise the level of 
land?” asked Jeannette. 

“ I do not know,” said Allan, “but that is what 
the books all say.” 

“Oh, I will explain that,” said the doctor; “it 


236 RUNNING THE RIVER 

does it in two ways. In the first place, the weeds 
and trees and grass and other kinds of vegetation 
live largely upon the air. They do not draw their 
sustenance chiefly from the ground. If they did, 
after a few years the soil would be exhausted and 
vegetation could not grow any longer upon it. 
The very growth of trees and weeds and grass on 
a piece of ground would presently reduce it to a 
barren waste. Instead of that, we always find that 
where vegetable life abounds the land is steadily 
enriched from year to year. You see, the things 
that grow root themselves in the ground mainly 
for two purposes. One is to hold themselves 
steady in their places and brace themselves 
against winds. The other is to draw the moisture 
they need from the soil. Beyond that they live 
mainly, as I said just now, upon the air — that is to 
say, they feed upon certain substances which the 
air carries with it and in it. So every year, when 
the leaves fall from the trees, or the grass ripens 
and withers, or the weeds are destroyed by frost, 
they fall upon the ground and return to it a great 
deal more than the plants have drawn from the 
soil. In that way the land grows not only richer, 
but higher above its original level. That isn’t true 
of all vegetation, but it is true of trees and most 
of the wild growths. 


THE FIRST NIGHT 


237 


“ That is one way in which land grows by the 
agency of vegetation. But along a river like this 
there is another way which is even more impor- 
tant. When the river has deposited mud enough 
to raise a part of its bottom above its surface, 
making land of it, and vegetation grows there, the 
grass, and weeds, and whatever else may be growing 
there, are sometimes under water, and they catch 
a world of the mud that is floating in the stream, 
stop it where it is, and let it deposit itself upon 
the mud bank. 

“Now I wonder if I make that clear to you? 
Muddy water running through grass, for instance, 
or weeds, leaves with them a considerable quan- 
tity of earth which had been floating down stream 
with the water. By stopping it there the grass 
and the weeds compel it to quit going down the 
stream and make it stop there to make land around 
their roots.” 

“ I must be stupid,” said Jeannette, “ or I should 
have known that without your explanation.” 

“ Well, I do not know,” said Allan, “ I am not 
accustomed to think of myself as stupid, and yet, 
when you asked me that question, I could not 
answer it, and I told you frankly that I did not 
know.” 

Thus as they steamed slowly down the river 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


238 

during the afternoon and evening the little party 
talked, and Joe Wyatt proved himself by no 
means the least interesting or the least instructive 
member of the party. He was by nature a quiet 
person, not disposed to say much, but he knew 
this Mississippi River, and whenever any ques- 
tion arose concerning it, he was apt to be prepared 
with an answer. 

Thus, when one of the boys asked how the 
mountain and rock formations through which they 
had to pass between St. Louis and the mouth of 
the Ohio came to be there, Joe instantly an- 
swered : 

“ All this part of the country is a sort of spur 
from the Ozark Mountains over in Arkansas. 
The spur runs up this way, crosses the river, and 
then slants down across the lower part of Illinois, 
making what the people there call an ‘upheaval.’” 

“ Now,” said the little doctor, “ it is eleven 
o’clock. You boys and Joe may sit up just as 
long as you please, and as for me I’m an owl 
anyhow, but Jeannette is going to bed right now. 
She is young enough yet to need sleep. Come, 
Jeannette, go to bed.” 

“ But, doctor,” said Jeannette, “ I’m afraid you 
will tell about something else interesting after I 
go.” 


THE FIRST NIGHT 


239 


“ No,” said the doctor, “ I’ll not talk at all, and 
as for the boys I’ll not let them talk about any- 
thing more interesting than a plow or a harrow.” 

“ But,” said Jeannette, “I can imagine myself 
interested in a plow or a harrow.” 

“Very well, then,” said the doctor, “you dear 
little minx, I’ll not let them talk about anything. 
Go to bed and so shall they. To-morrow morn- 
ing we’ll be up early in order to see all there is to 
see between here and Cairo.” 


CHAPTER XXV 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 

The little sternwheel steamboat on which the 
party voyaged was not a very powerful one or one 
capable of making good time against a stream, but 
the current between St. Louis and Cairo was 
strong at this season, and, as the boat was traveling 
with it, it was not long after noon the next day 
when she turned her prow out of the Mississippi 
and into the Ohio at Cairo. The boys and Jean- 
nette were all out upon the forecastle deck at the 
time, and the first thing they observed was the 
fact that, while the water of the Mississippi was a 
grayish-blue, there were “ boils ” in it of yellowish 
water, which seemed to come up from the bottom. 
Another thing that they observed was that the 
pilot had a good deal of difficulty in compelling 
the boat to keep anything like a proper course in 
making the turn. 

It was Joe with his recovered mind who ex- 
plained all this. 

“ The Ohio is running out,” he said. “ It’s full 
of water all the way from Pittsburg down, but it’s 

240 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


241 


especially full down here at the lower end because 
there is a freshet in the Tennessee and the Cum- 
berland, which empty into it about fifty or sixty 
miles above the mouth. The mud in the Missis- 
sippi renders the water grayish-black, while that 
in the Ohio is a reddish-yellow, or a yellowish-red, 
whichever way you choose to put it. As the cur- 
rent of the Ohio is stronger than that of the Mis- 
sissippi at this stage of water, the Ohio water runs 
under the Mississippi water and comes up in boils 
just as the water of a spring does. When this 
Ohio current suddenly strikes the bow of the boat, 
it slews it around, and that’s why the pilot has 
difficulty in keeping the boat on a straight course. 
He is contending with all sorts of cross currents. 
The Ohio River pours more water into the Missis- 
sippi than any other of its tributaries does except 
the Missouri. And as the Missouri changes the 
river from a limpid stream into a muddy one, so 
the Ohio changes it from a gray stream to a yel- 
lowish-reddish one. From here down you will ob- 
serve that the water is of a different color from 
that through which we have been passing.” 

The only reason Theodore had for stopping at 
Cairo was that he wished to take on there a supply 
of Pittsburg coal. The steamboats on the Missis- 
sippi at that time used mainly wood in their fur- 
16 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


24.2 

naces under the boilers, stopping here and there 
at woodyards to take on their supplies of fuel. 

Nothing in the navigation of the river was so 
picturesque as was the “ wooding-up,” especially 
when it occurred by night. The steamboat would 
land at a woodyard, the deck hands would bring 
out a great swinging iron basket full of fat pine 
sticks, which blazed in a way that illuminated not 
only the surrounding landscape, but the heavens 
themselves with its glory. Then the deck hands 
would go ashore and in an incredibly short time 
would transfer scores of cords of wood from the 
bank to the steamer’s deck. On the way up 
stream the boat saved time by taking in tow a 
number of flat-scows, each loaded with wood, and 
proceeding on her way up the river while the deck 
hands transferred the wood to the steamboat’s 
decks. Then the flat-scows, called “ wood-boats,” 
would be cast loose to float back down the river 
with their owners on board. 

But Theodore, who was beginning to be a care- 
ful steamboat man and a close calculator of ex- 
pense, had made up his mind that some money 
might be saved by taking in a supply of Pittsburg 
coal at Cairo. He had a double reason for this. 
In the first place, Pittsburg coal is peculiarly well 
adapted to the making of steam. It is intensely 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


243 

bituminous and full of gas. A single pound of it, 
when roasted in a gas furnace, will yield four or 
five cubic feet of gas, and, in burning, it leaves al- 
most no ashes at all. It was that coal which made 
Pittsburg great as an iron manufacturing center. 

Now, the boilers of Mississippi River steam- 
boats were so constructed that the fire in their 
furnaces was drawn under them from their for- 
ward to their rear ends, and thence turned back 
through flues, usually five in number, running 
through the middle of the boiler. Therefore the 
fuel that made the greatest flame was the best fuel 
for creating steam, and Pittsburg coal made so 
much flame and kept on making it so steadily that 
if the firing was well done the flames sometimes 
actually poured out of the top of the tall smoke- 
stacks. 

Theodore had concluded that on their way up 
the Red River it would be a great advantage to 
have a supply of this coal instead of depending 
upon such wood as he could buy along the banks. 
It was his plan to move only short distances at a 
time, and sometimes in those short distances he 
might not come upon a woodyard. Again, he had 
it in mind that the keepers of woodyards might 
thriftily charge him very high prices for their wood 
when they knew that he had no other source of 


244 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


fuel supply, while if he had an adequate reserve 
supply of Pittsburg coal on board he could be in- 
dependent of them and dictate his own terms in 
the purchase of wood. 

You see, Theodore was rapidly becoming a 
steamboat captain in earnest. So, too, he was 
learning to trade. While he had stopped at Cairo 
only to get coal, he was quick to avail himself of 
an opportunity that offered there. Among the 
many flat-boats that were coming out of the Ohio 
there was one loaded with apples from the orch- 
ards of southern Indiana — juicy red Jenitons and 
luscious Vandevers. This flat-boat had got to 
leaking so badly that the cargo had to be put 
ashore at Cairo. The owner of the boat, who was 
also its captain, had been stricken on the voyage 
with “fevernager ” in one of its worst forms. He 
had decided, therefore, to sell his cargo at Cairo 
for whatever it might bring, and Theodore bought 
three hundred barrels of the fruit at an almost 
nominal price. His little steamboat Blue Wing 
was already loaded to the guards, but he managed 
to dispose of this additional freight on board of 
her, bearing in mind the tradition of his boyhood, 
over which he had often wondered, that the people 
in the far South actually thought more of an apple 
than of an orange. He saw in that fact an oppor- 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


245 

tunity to increase the earnings of the firm, and he 
promptly seized it. 

Cairo is now an important river city with a great 
commerce. Lying as it does at the junction of the 
Ohio and Mississippi, and at the head of naviga- 
tion uninterrupted by ice, and being the center at 
which many railroads converge, it commands both 
the river outlet and the outlet southward by rail. 
But at the time of which we are writing, about the 
middle of the last century, Cairo was a wretched 
little village built upon a low-lying point of river- 
made land, subject to overflow every time that the 
waters of either river rose, and utterly incapable 
of defending itself against either flood or fever. 
Since that time it has surrounded itself with high 
levees, substantially built; it has filled in its 
streets, raising them to a level higher than that of 
the rivers at their greatest floods, and by the en- 
ergy of its citizens it has made itself a pleasant 
and comfortable city to live in, while building up 
at that point a great commercial and manufactur- 
ing prosperity. 

When the Faraday party landed there in the 
middle of the last century, the town was uninvit- 
ing in the extreme. The water in the swollen 
Ohio was already flowing through many of the 
unprotected streets, and the people were shiver- 


246 RUNNING THE RIVER 

in g with agues that even quinine could not con- 
quer. 

As the boat pushed her nose up to the scarcely 
begun levee, the little doctor said to his compan- 
ions: 

“ This is Eden — the Eden of Martin Chuzzle- 
wit.” 

Jeannette instantly asked for an explanation, 
and the doctor replied : 

“ Why, don’t you know ? Six or eight years ago 
Charles Dickens wrote a novel called ‘Martin 
Chuzzlewit,’ in which his hero came to America 
and was deluded by the advertisements of real 
estate owners. He came to Cairo, which Dickens 
calls ‘Eden,’ and tried to settle there. Dickens 
gives a positively horrible account of the place, ex- 
aggerating its unattractiveness, as he exaggerates 
everything he writes about. But there is a good 
deal of truth in his account. The trouble is that 
Martin Chuzzlewit came too soon. Cairo is so 
located that sooner or later it must become one 
of the great commercial cities of the Mississippi 
Valley, and as for healthfulness, it is only a mat- 
ter of spending money. The town has already 
begun to build levees around itself, and it will not 
stop until it shall have raised its level far above 
that of the highest floods. But in the mean while 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


247 


it is low lying, malarious in the extreme, and sub- 
ject to destruction every time the river rises. You 
must understand that Cairo, and practically all 
the country south of it to the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi, is not only low and flat, but is, in fact, only 
a little above the level of the water at ordinary 
stages, and far below it when the rivers are high.’' 

There was nothing at that time to induce the 
party to stay at Cairo, and the boys were anxious 
to get away down the river. So as soon as the 
coal and the apples were on board, the little 
steamer Blue Wing backed out and turned her 
head again into the Mississippi. 

Then the little doctor opened school. He had 
fitted up a little school-room at the stern of the 
boat, in which he and Jeannette might prosecute 
those plans of education which he had wrought 
out for her. With his scientific appreciation of the 
value of order he regulated their hours of work 
as rigidly as he might have done if he had had 
twenty or thirty pupils instead of one. The result 
was that Jeannette’s progress— she being his only 
pupil and one who wished to learn all she could 
and as fast as she could — was very rapid and alto- 
gether satisfactory. The boys had their duties to 
do, of course ; but so long as the steamboat was 
slowly making her way down the Mississippi these 


248 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


duties were light, and both Edgar and Allan vol- 
untarily took up studies under the little doctor’s 
direction by way of keeping up their education. 

Still the school, as the doctor insisted, was com- 
posed of himself for teacher and Jeannette for the 
student body, and these two worked lovingly to- 
gether. 

“ You see,” he explained, “ Jeannette is going to 
enter that big woman’s college or school, or what- 
ever you call it, as soon as this trip is over, and I 
mean that she shall enter away up in her classes, 
and that she shall be better equipped for the 
higher work than any other girl in the school is. 
You see, I’m ambitious and I have a pride in my- 
self as a teacher. It is a business I never engaged 
in before, but I always make it a rule when I go 
into any business to do it, if I can, better than 
anybody else does it.” 

Certainly the little doctor did this work better 
than most other persons might have done under 
the same circumstances. He taught Jeannette 
not only her mathematics, in which she was quick, 
but her Latin, her Greek, and more especially her 
French. After a little time he refused to let her 
talk to him in anything but French, a language in 
which he was himself an expert. And as she had 
a quick ear for sounds, she acquired a pronuncia- 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


249 

tion which he declared must astonish the teachers 
in that female school when she should go there. 

“ I’m sorry I can’t teach you anything about the 
piano, Jeannette,” said he, “because there is a 
fashion on that just now. The people of this 
country have got a foolish notion that every girl 
can be converted into a musician by taking music 
lessons. The result of it is a tremendous volume 
of noise and not much else. Never mind that 
now. I suppose when you go to school they’ll 
make you hammer at the keys till you can play 
‘Go Forget Me,’ ‘Days of Absence,’ and a lot of 
things of that sort. But unless you have some 
musical ability — and frankly, Jeannette, I don’t 
believe you have — all that will be wasted time.” 

“ Then I won’t do it, doctor. I won’t take 
piano lessons at all. I don’t care anything about 
them. So there’s an end of that.” 

“ But, my dear child,” said the doctor, “perhaps 
they won’t graduate you, you know, unless you 
have had lessons on the piano. That’s the school 
plan just now, and we have to sacrifice something 
to theory, particularly as I have already thought 
out what the flowers are to be at your graduation, 
and have arranged with some dressmakers to en- 
gage certain other dressmakers, their successors, 
to make that gorgeous gown you are going to 


250 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


wear on that occasion. Oh, you’ve got to gradu- 
ate even if you have to make more noise than a 
little minx like you ought to make in the world. 
I’ll forgive you the noise, just because you’re Jean- 
nette.” 

Theodore had decided to make no stop between 
Cairo and the mouth of the Red River, except one 
at Memphis and one at Vicksburg, for the pur- 
pose of securing supplies of milk and fresh vege- 
tables and such other stops as might be necessary 
for the purpose of wooding-up ; for he did not in- 
tend to begin using his coal until he should enter 
the Red River. So the boat slowly made her way 
down the Mississippi, the doctor teaching all the 
time, but not always in the school-room. He was 
fond of having the little party gather together on 
the forward guards and submit themselves to such 
casual instruction as Joe might feel inclined to 
give them with respect to the river and its geog- 
raphy and history. On all these subjects Joe, 
now that his mind was restored, was an expert 
authority. 

One evening Jeannette asked him: 

“ How does it come about, Joe, that you know 
so much about the river?” 

“Well,” he said, “I was born out here and 
brought up here, and all my work has been con- 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


251 


nected in one way or another with the river. A 
man who builds steamboats, as I have done all my 
life, and other kinds of boats besides, has need to 
know all there is to know about the river that 
those boats are to navigate. So, you see, I’ve 
made it my business to know what I could about 
all this.” 

At Vicksburg he explained to them how the 
Yazoo was related to the main stream. 

“ You see, this country down here is almost per- 
fectly flat and not very much higher than the river 
is even at low water. At high water it used to be 
all overflowed, and it would be now but for the 
levees. But the biggest overflow of all is apt to 
come in what we call the June rise, and as crops 
are well advanced in June, if people are to grow 
cotton and corn down here, they must protect 
themselves against the overflow of the June rise. 
To do that they have built embankments along 
the river called levees. The sole purpose of these 
is to keep the river within bounds. Now there is 
a very low and flat region in Mississippi which 
stretches from away up the river down to Vicks- 
burg. I suppose that in high water the Missis- 
sippi used to break over its banks up there not far 
below Memphis, flood the whole country and come 
back into the main channel about Vicksburg. 


252 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


When the water is not high, there are rivers 
all through there that empty into the main 
stream down here through the Yazoo delta. 
There are the Big Sunflower and the Little Sun- 
flower, and the Tallahatchee, and the Yalobusha, 
all of which run together to form the Yazoo River. 
They are all navigable even now at some stages of 
water, and that helps to make that great region up 
there valuable as a producing country. 

It is the finest cotton region in the world, and 

for a few months in 
f ^ every year there is 

water enough in 
the rivers for steam- 
boats to go up there 
and bring out the 
cotton. Corn grows 
there, too, in great 
luxuriance. The 
stalks grow to fif- 
teen and eighteen 
and even twenty- 
odd feet in height, 
and they produce 
enormous ears of 
corn. Still there is a tendency in that soil and 
climate rather to make stalk than to produce 



COTTON PLANT AND GIN 


DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI 


253 

corn, and so while the stalks are tall and the 
ears large the corn-fields produce only about one- 
third as much grain per acre as they do up 
in the Illinois River country. Still the farmers 
there, or planters rather, are able to make corn 
enough to feed their stock, and that is very for- 
tunate for them, because their communication 
with the outside world is very uncertain, and 
sometimes they are shut in for many months 
at a time. You see, the levees were built along 
the Mississippi at that part of the river a good 
while ago, and they are carefully protected. The 
result of that is that the Mississippi no longer 
spreads out over that region, going down through 
the Yazoo, excepting in times of very high water, 
when sometimes the levees break. When that 
happens, everything in that region is flooded, and 
often people’s houses are washed away and the 
people themselves are drowned. I suppose some 
day government works will regulate all that, but in 
the mean while those people have got to face the 
danger and take the consequences ; but they do it 
gladly, because they can make two or three bales 
of cotton to the acre up there, and that makes 
them rich.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 

As the boat neared the mouth of Red River, The- 
odore decided to make a landing and lie at the 
bank all night. He explained to his companions 
that he wanted to call them all into conclave to 
consider the conditions of their voyage and decide 
advisedly upon how to proceed. 

The conclave was held after supper, and all were 
present at it. 

“ Now there are just two plans open to us,” said 
Theodore. “ One of them is to run straight on 
up the river to the raft without stopping and then 
come down, selling goods and buying such things 
as the little planters have to sell until we dispose 
of our merchandise and get a cargo of sugar, mo- 
lasses, and cotton instead. The other plan is to 
stop along the river as we go up and do our trad- 
ing. Then as we come back we can pick up the 
sugar, molasses, cotton, etc., that we have bought 
on the way up.” 

“ Well,” said the little doctor, “ when you’ve a 

case of illness on hand, you usually take the 
254 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 


2 55 

advice of your doctor rather than that of your 
lawyer, don’t you? ” 

“ Why, yes, certainly,” said Theodore ; “ but I do 
not catch the drift of your suggestion, doctor.” 

“Well, it’s only this: in every case where 
counsel is wanted it is always best to ask advice 
from the man who knows most about the condi- 
tions. Now I know a little about this Red River 
country because I’ve been up here several times, 
and Allan knows a little from his books, and 
Theodore has learned a good deal since he began 
to run the river. But 
Captain Wyatt — no, 

I’ll call him Joe, as 
he asks us all to 
continue doing — Joe 
knows a great deal 
more about it than 
all the rest of us put 
together do, so the 
question is, What do 
you think, Joe? ” 

The others signi- 
fied their desire to 

LIVE, UAIV 

be guided by Joe’s 

opinion, and Joe gave it without hesitation. 

“ It will be much the better plan, I think, to do 



256 RUNNING THE RIVER 

our trading as we go up and pick up our return 
cargo as we come back. There are several reasons 
for that. In the first place, as I told you, this 
river must be navigated mainly by sight — that is 
to say, it is never safe in this river to count upon 
a snag or a sawyer being in the same place to-day 
that you found it in yesterday. They shift about 
as much as they please, and they constitute the 
principal danger of navigation in the Red River. 
Of course our pilot knows all the landmarks and 
knows where the channel is and knows how to fol- 
low it, and all that sort of thing, but he doesn’t 
know and can not know where the dangerous snags 
are. So it seems to me that for our purposes it 
will be much better to go up the river slowly and 
only by daylight. If we do our stopping along for 
trading purposes as we go up, we can travel at 
such times as we please. In any case we may run 
foul of a snag that is under water, but I shall be in 
the pilot-house whenever the boat is in motion, 
and I think by keeping a close lookout I can avoid 
that. On the other hand, if we run up to the raft 
on a straight-away voyage, we must take a good 
many chances of having a sawyer strike the bot- 
tom of the boat and come ripping up through her 
and out of the hurricane deck, spearing her like a 
frog.” 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 


257 


“ That settles it,”said Theodore, “ and you need 
not bother, Joe, to give your other reasons. The 
case reminds me of a story I once read about a 
French king who was moving about through his 
dominions. Upon one occasion he came to a 
town where to his astonishment no salute was 
fired in honor of his coming. He angrily sum- 
moned the mayor of the town and demanded to 
know why this mark of respect to the sovereign 
had been omitted. The trembling mayor ap- 
peared before him with a long paper, carefully pre- 
pared, which began by saying: 4 Sire, we have 
forty reasons to offer in explanation of our failure 
to fire a salute. The first of these reasons is that 
we have no cannon.’ Thereupon the king said: 
‘ Never mind the other thirty-nine reasons.’ So 
without waiting for Joe’s other reasons we’ll decide 
to go up the river, trading as we go, and to come 
down it in the same fashion, picking up our little 
cargo as we come.” 

Thus it was arranged, but not thus was the voy- 
age to be carried out, at least for a time. That 
unruly demon, the great Mississippi River, had 
not been consulted, and in its wilful way it pres- 
ently took matters into its own hands. This is the 
way that it came about. 

The Mississippi was high and rising. So was 
17 


258 RUNNING THE RIVER 

the Red River. The levees on either side of both 
streams lay only a little way above the level of 
the water. As the Blue Wing pushed her prow 
into the Red River and started up that stream, she 
was suddenly seized by a strong cross current, and 
in spite of all that her engines could do she was 
swung to the left and south through a great open- 
ing that appeared in the bank, and by the time 
that she was got under control again she was not 
in the Red River at all, but in what is known as 
the Atchafalaya Bayou. Of course all on board 
were quick to recognize the fact that the pilot had 
lost control of the boat, and that something deci- 
sive had happened. The pilot was one whom 
Theodore had employed for this trip in spite of 
Joe’s insistance that he need employ none at all 
except as a matter of form, and at the time of the 
boat’s diversion from her course Joe had not yet 
gone to the pilot house. He hurried thither 
promptly when he saw what had happened and 
ordered the boat landed. By that time Theodore 
was with him and so was the little doctor. 

“What is it that has happened, Joe?” said 
Theodore. “ I do not quite make it out.” 

“Well, this is it,” said Joe. “ Here where the 
Red River empties itself into the Mississippi it is 
a little bit infirm of purpose, if I may say so. It 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 


259 


is never quite certain whether it will send its waters 
to the gulf through the Mississippi channel or 
send them down to Atchafalaya Bay through this 
Atchafalaya Bayou, as it is called, in which we 
now are. You must understand that this so-called 
bayou is in fact a river, or rather it is one of the 
mouths of the Mississippi. There isn’t much 
doubt that it used to be the lower end of Red 
River, and that Red River, in times of high water 
at least, is a good deal disposed to travel by this 
old track instead of going down the Mississippi 
past New Orleans in order to get to the gulf. But 
a good deal worse thing than that is threatened. 
This opening is so close to the Mississippi that 
that river also shows a disposition sometimes to 
reach the gulf through the Atchafalaya Bayou 
and to give up its old route by way of New Or- 
leans. If that ever happens New Orleans and all 
the Louisiana towns farther up the river will be 
left completely inland, and property now worth 
many millions of dollars will become almost value- 
less. You see, in a soil so soft as this is down here 
and lying so nearly on a level with the water, the 
river can do pretty much as it pleases. If it starts 
to cut a new channel anywhere it doesn’t require 
many hours in which to do it. There are no rocks 
to hold the soil in place, and the soil itself is com- 


26 o 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


posed merely of sand and soft mud which the 
water, when it begins to flow with anything like a 
current, can cut away as easily as a hot knife cuts 
butter. Well, both the Mississippi and the Red 
River are high just now and rising, so the Red 
River, finding the Mississippi too full to receive 
its waters readily, is shooting off a lot of them into 
the Atchafalaya. The pilot made the mistake of 
running the boat too close to the southern bank, 


and so when the cur- 
rent caught her she 
was driven through 
the outlet and into 
the Atchafalaya. 
That’s where we are 
now.” 



“ But can we go 
back?” asked Theo- 
dore. 


“ I do not know. 
It is doubtful. At 
the present stage of 
the water the current 
in the opening is 


ATCHAFALAYA SWAMP 


probably greater than this under-powered boat can 
stand, and the Government has made the matter 
worse, trying to make it better. The engineers 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 261 

have narrowed the outlet, and so at this high stage 
of water there’s a tremendous current where ordi- 
narily there is almost none at all. In fact I don’t 
understand why it is so great as it is. It puzzles 
me a bit. But we’ll try it at any rate. Now, 
Theodore, if you will order your engineer to use 
his Pittsburg coal and make every pound of steam 
that his boilers can carry, I’ll take the wheel and 
we will see what can be done.” 

Not until the steam was increased to the maxi- 
mum did Joe allow the boat to be cast loose from 
the bank. Then carefully guiding her he made a 
dash toward the opening into the Red River. For 
a little time success seemed to be promised, but 
just as the prow of the boat approached the point 
of junction a cross current struck it, slewed the 
Blue Wing around and drove her back into the 
bayou. Joe had her tied up to the bank again 
until the greatest possible head of steam could be 
created and then made a second effort. This he 
repeated four times, but always with the same re- 
sult. Finally he ordered the boat tied up again to 
the shore, and, turning to Theodore, said: 

“ It can not be done. We can’t force her 
through that sluiceway, at least not for the pres- 
ent.” 

By this time the whole party was on the hurri- 


262 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


cane deck, for Joe and the pilot had quitted the 
wheel since the boat was tied up and all assembled 
to consider the perplexing circumstances. 

‘‘Now, Joe,” said Theodore, “the question is 
what is to be done ? ” 

“ Well,” said Joe, “ it all depends upon the stage 
of water. For one thing we could wait here until 
the rise in the river ceases. When that happens 
the water in the bayou will be as high as that in 
the Red River, and we can easily get back into 
the river, for there’ll be no current at all then. 
But how long it will take for the rise to expend 
itself in view of the way that the Ohio, the Cum- 
berland, and the Tennessee are pouring floods into 
the river is a question that we can’t decide. At 
any rate we must stay in the bayou until that hap- 
pens.” 

“ That’s all right,” said Theodore. “ It merely 
means a change in our program. This Atchafa- 
laya runs through as rich a country as there is in 
Louisiana, and in some respects, in most respects 
in fact, it is better adapted to our trade purposes 
than the Red River itself is. You see, the people 
here haven’t any dependable means of communi- 
cation with New Orleans. Sometimes they can 
get their produce there through the Red River 
and the Mississippi, while sometimes they can’t, 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 263 

because few steamboats run in here. The result 
of that is that they need our service as traders a 
good deal more even than the Red River people 
do.” 

“Then what would you suggest, Theodore?” 
asked the doctor. 

“ That we spend the time while waiting for the 
flood to subside by making a trading voyage down 
the bayou and up again. When we have sold our 
goods and bought a cargo of cotton, sugar, mo- 
lasses, rice, oranges, and the like we can quietly 
wait till we can get back into the river. Then 
we’ll take our cargo to New Orleans and St. Louis 
as we had planned to do at first, or we’ll go up Red 
River if we have anything left to sell.” 

“ That is the best thing to be done,” said the 
doctor, “and perhaps we shan’t regret the mishap 
in the end.” 

“I shall,” said Jeannette, “because it disap- 
points my curiosity.” 

“How do you mean, Jeannette?” asked the 
doctor. 

“ Why, you people have been telling me so much 
about the Red River, and have so often mentioned 
the ‘ raft ’ that I am full of curiosity to see it all. 
I have not asked any questions because I am a 
woman, the only little woman on board, and I do 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


264 

not want to be laughed at about my ‘ feminine 
curiosity.’ ” 

“ Oh, as to that,” said the doctor, “ I don’t know. 
I never found that women had more curiosity 
than men. That’s a slander on your sex, and you, 
Jeannette, mustn’t accept it. But tell me, what is 
it that you are curious about ? ” 

“ Never mind now,” said Jeannette, “ I will ask 
all of my questions in the evening, when we are 
landed somewhere. Just now dinner is ready, and 
I think the best thing for us to do will be to turn 
the boat around and steam down stream to the 
first point at which we are going to do any trad- 
ing. We musn’t lose time, you know.” 

This advice was recognized by all as the wisest 
that could be given, and so the boat was set in 
motion again steaming down the bayou to a point 
where a considerable number of plantations had a 
landing that they used in common. There she 
was tied up to a bank. 

The point was one that attracted Jeannette’s at- 
tention and fascinated that young lady’s rather im- 
aginative mind. It was nearly dark when the boat 
was made fast, and the glare of the basket torches, 
as the darkness increased, illuminated a forest on 
the bank, such as Jeannette had never seen before. 
The forest was dense in an extreme degree. It 


ON THE ATCHAFALAYA 265 

was composed mainly of gigantic cypress trees, and 
a little way back, on either side of the narrow road 
which led to the landing, the cane, the bamboo, 
and all sorts of creeping vines, many of them enor- 
mous in size, filled every inch of space between the 
trees in a way that, as Jeannette said, “ threatened 
to suffocate them.” In many cases the great 
clinging and climbing vines had fastened them- 
selves to the lofty limbs of the trees and crawled 
little by little all over them. At one point Jean- 
nette, who had gone ashore immediately after the 
boat landed, discovered a tree of considerable size 
over which a thick tangle of yellow jessamine vine 
had grown, literally smothering the tree to death 
and making of it a mere bower to support the 
beautiful growth of vine. So little Miss Jeannette 
was fascinated with the weird effect of the dense 
forest, the cane brakes, and the flickering lights 
that illuminated them, and she proposed to stay 
ashore, establish a bivouac fire, and spend the 
night under the trees. 

“ Yes,” said the little doctor, '‘and get up in the 
morning with the very worst case of ‘ fevernager ’ 
that you ever knew in your life.” 

“Oh,” said Jeannette, “is that so? I did not 
think of it. It did not seem to me that such a thing 
as disease could exist in such a paradise as this.” 


266 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“Oh, as to that,” said the doctor, “you remem- 
ber that Eve found a serpent in the first paradise 
ever created on earth. Now you, young lady, will 
sleep in your berth to-night and get up in the 
morning, take a good stiff dose of quinine, and 
drink two cups of steaming hot coffee with your 
ham and eggs.” 

“Oh,” said Jeannette, “this is the way I’m 
treated. I am a poor persecuted school-girl, and 
my school-master is a terrible despot. But then 
I rather like it, doctor, and I do not at all like 
‘ fevernager.’” 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE RED RIVER RAFT, ORCHIDS, AND SOME OTHER 
THINGS 

But if Jeannette was not permitted to spend the 
night on shore studying the lights and shadows 
created by the torches in the dense subtropical 
forest, she at least spent some hours on the guards 
of the boat watching those lights and studying the 
various effects. She was particularly pleased with 
the appearance of a little stretch of live oaks. 
These interested her because it was now late in 
December, and yet their leafage was as lush and 
green as that of any apple tree up north in June. 

They looked like apple trees too, both in their 
shape and in the general effect of their foliage. 
But still more, Jeannette was fascinated by the 
long gray moss that hung in festoons from their 
branches, sometimes hanging almost to the 
ground. She had gathered an armful of that moss 
before she went back aboard the boat, and she told 
the little old doctor that she was going to study it 
under the microscope next day. 

“ You see, doctor,” she said, “ I can’t see what it 

267 


268 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


lives on. It doesn’t root itself anywhere, not even 
on the limbs of the trees, and I do not see how it 
grows, because growth involves the taking up of 
material from some source. You’re my school- 
master. Why don’t you tell me how it does it? ” 

“ Come with me,” said the little doctor. Then 
he turned to a deck hand and said : 

“ Bring one of the torches.” 

The deck hand took up an iron swinging basket 
filled with flaming fat wood and lighted the way 
while the little doctor and Jeannette strolled off 
into the forest. Presently the little doctor found 
what he wanted. 

“ Look here,” he said, “ you see these splendid 
orchids hanging in the air from limbs of the trees? 
Not one of them is rooted in the earth or in any- 
thing else that gives them sustenance. They are 
simply rooted to dead limbs and the like, for the 
sake of holding themselves in place. They live 
altogether on the air. They are what we call air 
plants, and yet, as you see, they give us flowers as 
gorgeous as any that the greenhouse people can 
produce by the use of the best soils and by the 
most diligent watering and fertilizing. Now the 
same thing is true about this moss. It lives exclu- 
sively on the air and feeds from it alone. You 
must remember, Jeannette, that the atmosphere, 


THE RED RIVER RAFT 269 

which surrounds this world as an envelope, is as 
completely filled as the earth itself is with things 
that sustain life. That’s why I make you come 
out every morning and breathe the air. It is just 
as important as beefsteak or chops or ham and 
eggs can be to the nourishment of the human 
system. That’s where people go wrong so often. 
Half the women in this country stay indoors and 
imagine that they 
get all they need 
of nutrition from 
their breakfast, din- 
ner, and supper 
tables. They will 
learn better after a 
while, but till they 
do they’ll have 
pasty complexions 
and will be always 
suffering with 
something or other 
and sending for the 
doctor to cure it. 

The lack of open air 

CYPRESS SWAMP 

is the greatest lack 

of the women of this country, and of the girls too. 
That’s why the boys are so much stronger and 



270 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


healthier than the girls, and that is why so many 
women think a fashionable consumption more fem- 
inine than a healthy, robust color and the ability to 
enjoy open-air exercise. Oh, do not bother ; they’ll 
get over it, but it will take time. It all grows out of 
a false notion — the notion that a girl must be re- 
strained and kept in leading-strings while her 
brothers are left free to develop themselves by such 
exercise as their healthy animal natures suggest. 
Don’t misunderstand me. Human beings do not 
really feed on air as plants do, but it is just as nec- 
essary to them in another way, and women and 
girls don’t get half enough of it, because of false 
notions of what is proper. 

“ Why, even up there in that little Illinois village 
I was called to attend a girl a little while ago, and, 
instead of prescribing medicines for her, I pre- 
scribed a game of ball with her two brothers. 
Thereupon her mother objected, saying that it 
wasn’t considered ‘ ladylike ’ for a girl to throw a 
ball or catch it or bat it. I think I convinced that 
mother that it was better for a girl to do natural 
things and grow healthy than to be ladylike and 
make herself the principal personage at a funeral 
service at about twenty-three or twenty-four years 
of age. But the great majority do not understand 
that yet, and they won’t till the doctors assert their 



THE WONDERS OF THE FOREST 


Page 270 































































THE RED RIVER RAFT 


271 

authority sufficiently to compel attention to hy- 
gienic living. 

“Jeannette, you know how I have rigged up 
a little gymnasium for you back in the boat there, 
and you remember how I smashed all the glass in 
all the windows there so that you might have 
plenty of fresh air while doing your work on the 
bars? Now I’ll tell you what my plan is. I am 
not going to make you a well-regulated young 
lady. I am going to make you a healthy young 
woman — healthy in mind and healthy in body — 
and then whatever happens life won’t mean for 
you a succession of coughs and neuralgias, and 
headaches and backaches, and all the other aches 
that trouble so many people simply because they 
do not live enough in the open air and do not take 
exercise enough. I tell you, Jeannette, I am not 
a preacher who goes into the pulpit ; but I am a 
preacher just the same, and I’m preaching the 
gospel of nature and health — the gospel of open 
air and plenty of exercise, plenty of good, nourish- 
ing food, and finally naturalness. 

“ You can write it up in your hat for ready refer- 
ence that the difference between a boy and a girl 
or a man and a woman is very slight indeed, so 
far, at least, as it involves a difference in what ought 
to be their habits of living. All the difference 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


272 

that now exists in the training of boys and girls is 
pure nonsense based upon a false conception of 
what is ‘ ladylike ’ — how I hate that word ! — and 
the one remedy for most of the ills, of a physical 
kind at least, and even of a moral kind, that wom- 
en suffer, is plenty of open-air exercise, freedom, 
and the full development of all the physical facul- 
ties. You do not understand all that as yet, but 
you will some day, and I want you to remember 
it. 

“ Now let’s go back on the boat, because, while 
there is plenty of air here, it is rather poisonous in 
the absence of the sunshine.” 

With that the little old doctor and the young 
girl walked back hand-in-hand to the boat and 
seated themselves with the rest of the party on the 
guards. Jeannette carried in her hand a beautiful 
and curiously formed orchid, and some other air 
plants which the doctor had gathered for her 
among the trees and vines. 

Then Jeannette propounded her questions. 

“ Now I want to hear,” said she, “ about the Red 
River and the raft. You see, you have never told 
me anything about it, and I want to know from 
you, Joe, why there are so many snags and saw- 
yers in the Red River. And by the way, what is 
the difference between a snag and a sawyer? ” 


THE RED RIVER RAFT 


273 


“ Well,” said Joe, “a snag is a broken-off tree or 
a log lodged in the river, against which a steam- 
boat may run with the certainty of having its bot- 
tom pierced, and with the practical certainty of 
sinking in consequence. A sawyer is a snag of a 
particular kind. It is a tree broken off in the 
same way, but lodged in the stream with its roots 
clinging to the bottom so that as the water flows 
by it rises and falls, being sometimes out of water 
and sometimes under — seesawing just as a top 
sawyer does in sawing lumber.” 

“ But what is atop sawyer?” asked Jeannette, 
“and how does he seesaw in sawing lumber?” 

“ Why in the old days before sawmills came into 
use,” answered Joe, “they used to make planks 
and boards by mounting the logs upon tall saw- 
horses and sawing them by hand. One of the 
sawyers stood on top of the log and the other be- 
low. The two together used what is called a 
whip-saw. The more expert of the two was 
always the top sawyer because it was his duty to 
follow the lines marked off on the timber. In 
sawing he raised himself to his fullest height, drew 
the saw up and then bent down again, until his 
hands almost touched the timber. Now a sawyer 
in the river rises and falls in precisely the same 

way, and that is why it is called a sawyer.” 

18 


274 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ I can understand that,” said Jeannette, “but I 

do not yet understand why ” 

“ Hold on a minute, 1 ” said Joe, “ I want to ex- 
plain that the reason there is more danger from 
sawyers and snags in running up a river than run- 
ning down is that both the sawyers and the snags 
are held by the current so as to point down stream. 
You can understand that. If a log is loosely fast- 
ened by one of its ends to the bottom of the river 
where there is a strong current it will incline down 
stream. Now if a steam boat is going down stream 
and runs upon a snag of that kind she simply 
presses it down into the water and runs over it. 
But if she is going up stream the end of it is very 
apt to crush through her bottom and sink her. 
That is why I thought it better to go up stream 
very slowly and only in daylight hours.” 

“That is very interesting,” said Jeannette, “but 
tell me now why are there so many more snags 
and sawyers in the Red River than in most 
others? ” 

“Well,” said Joe, “they come from the raft.” 

“ There,” said Jeannette, “ that’s what I wanted 
to get at. I have heard that raft mentioned very 
often, and I want to know what it is. ” 

Joe smiled a little and answered: 

“ A good many other people would like to know 


THE RED RIVER RAFT 


275 


something about that raft, and the Government of 
the United States has been spending a lot of 
money trying to find out. It consists of an im- 
mense accumulation of trees, logs, and drift wood. 
It stretches from one bank of the river to the 
other and extends from the surface to the bottom, 
completely choking the stream. That is because 
the current presses the timbers from above upon 
those that lie below until it builds a solid mass of 
timber, the water running through such spaces as 
are left between the different pieces. 

“ The raft completely chokes the river, and all the 
efforts that the Government has thus far made to 
clear it away have been futile. A few years ago 
the snag boats worked at it night and day, and 
succeeded in about a year in removing a mile of it 
from the lower end, only to find out that while 
they were doing that, two or three miles more had 
accumulated at the upper end. It is an interesting 
fact that this raft is continually moving upstream.” 

“Up stream!” exclaimed Jeannette. " How 
can it move up stream ? ” 

“Well, it does and it doesn’t,” said Joe. “Of 
course the timbers do not float up stream. That 
would be a ridiculous state of affairs. But as the 
river is completely choked by the timbers, and as 
there is a constant supply of fresh timbers lodging 


27 6 RUNNING THE RIVER 

day by day upon the upper end of the raft, while 
the lower end, slowly rotting, sloughs off, you can 
see that year by year the raft is located farther and 
farther up the stream. There are islands in the 
Mississippi River that do the same thing. 

“ Now let me go back to the question of snags. 
As the timbers, constituting the lower end of the 
raft, rot and slough off they float down the river. 
Most of them are water-soaked at one end, so that 
that end sinks and drags along the bottom while 
the other end remains free. There you’ve got a 
snag, or a sawyer as the case may be, and as these 
snags and sawyers are not permanently fastened 
to the bottom they continue to shift their position 
from day to day, just as I told you some time ago. 
That is what makes the navigation of the Red 
River so difficult and so dangerous. 

“ The raft itself is covered with vegetation. 
Every sort of thing grows on it, even to big trees, 
and as there is a continual decay of vast quantities 
of vegetable matter on it, there is of course a great 
deal of malaria given off, so that the region, round 
the lower end of it at least, is almost pestilential. 
Now as the raft moves up stream in the way I ex- 
plained to you, at the rate of about a mile and a 
half a year, the region of pestilence moves up at 
the same rate. The result of that is that farmers 


THE RED RIVER RAFT 


277 


are driven up the stream, abandoning homes in 
which they and their wives and children simply 
cannot live.” 

“ But why should there be such an accumulation 
of timber on the Red River? ” asked Jeannette. 

“ Why, the country through which it flows is 
mainly a dense forest, and as the trees grow in the 
soft soil with nothing in the world to hold them in 
place, the banks are perpetually caving in and the 
river is perpetually changing its bed and banks. 
You can readily understand that as the banks cave 
in the trees growing on them fall into the river. 
This thing must have been going on ever since 
dry land appeared in this part of the country. I 
suppose that the raft used to be very near the 
mouth of the river. The scientific people say so 
and it seems certain. The lower end of it is now 
about four hundred miles up the river. The Gov- 
ernment has been busy since 1833 — that is to say, 
for fifteen or twenty years past — in trying to re- 
move it or cut a passage through it for steamboats. 
Whether these efforts will ever succeed or not I do 
not know, any more than I know whether the Gov- 
ernment will ever succeed in preventing the Mis- 
sissippi and the Red River from running off to the 
sea by way of this Atchafalaya Bayou. But, at 
any rate, for a great many years to come this prob- 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


278 

lem of the Red River is going to cost the Govern- 
ment many millions of dollars every year, and a 
world of hard work on the part of the engineers.” 

“ How long is the raft?” asked Jeannette. “ I 
mean how much of the river is obstructed by it? ” 

"About a hundred and thirty miles, and it is 
growing at the rate of several miles per year at the 
upper end, while at the lower end it is sloughing 
off rather more slowly, so that it increases in 
length every year. 

“ But now do you know, I am puzzled,” said Joe 
reflectively. “ I can not at all understand how we 
were swung off here into the Atchafalaya. I 
never heard of a current anywhere down here like 
that which we found it impossible to stem in order 
to get back to the Red River. The fall is so slight 
that I can’t account for it. But I’ll find out after 
a while. I’ve got to find out in fact, or I’ll never 
be satisfied.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


HOMEWARD BOUND 

Slowly the little steamboat moved on down the 
river, stopping here and there to sell out parts of 
its cargo and buy other freight instead. The trad- 
ing was altogether different from that which the 
boys had conducted in the Illinois River. It was 
mainly a wholesale trade rather than a retail one, 
such as the other had been. The proprietors of 
plantations bought goods far more largely than 
the poor farmers up in Illinois had done, for they 
had to buy not only for their own families but for 
all their negroes as well. They purchased sup- 
plies of every kind in considerable quantities, and 
they bought the more readily because the boys 
were willing to purchase their products in return. 

The three hundred barrels of apples were quick- 
ly sold at a very high price, and their place in the 
cargo space of the steamer was taken by hogsheads 
of sugar, barrels of molasses, and great casks of 
rice purchased of the planters. There were hun- 
dreds of boxes of oranges also, for this was within 
the orange-growing region of Louisiana. The 


28 o 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


boys knew they could sell these oranges in St. 
Louis for a great deal more than their apples had 
cost at Cairo. 

About a week after the boat had drifted into the 
Atchafalaya there came along a government snag 
boat. It was a big steamer, light of draught, with 
enormous engines, and carrying no freight. It 
was equipped with all sorts of derricks and spars 
and mechanical appliances of other kinds intended 
to enable it to do great engineering feats in the 
river. 

The captain of the snag boat landed her by the 
side of the Blue Wing , and instantly questions 
arose as to how the Blue Wing came to be in the 
Atchafalaya Bayou. Then for the first time Joe’s 
curiosity on that subject was satisfied. It ap- 
peared that the Government had been putting in 
certain works at the outlet from the Red River to 
the Atchafalaya, which had temporarily and very 
greatly narrowed the opening and swollen the 
river at that point. The rise in both the Missis- 
sippi and the Red River had come unexpectedly, 
and the result had been that the outlet had be- 
come a veritable crevasse. 

“ If you want to go back into the Red River,” 
said the captain of the snag boat, “you’ve only to 
come along. I’ll tow you through the opening, 


HOMEWARD BOUND 


281 


though I dare say that by this time you can run 
through under your own steam.” 

This suggestion was accepted at once, and the 
Blue Wing , half emptied now of the cargo she had 
brought south, and half filled with the cargo of 
Southern products taken in exchange, turned her 
prow northward again in company with the snag 
boat. With a little assistance from the govern- 
ment steamer the Blue Wing was brought again 
into the Red River and the intended voyage up 
that stream was begun. 

It was prosecuted in accordance with Joe’s 
plans ; that is to say, the boat was navigated only 
by daylight, stopping always over-night, and some 
times for several days together, to sell goods to the 
planters and to buy their products in return. By 
Christmas day the up-river voyage was completed. 
The supply of goods of every kind which the boys 
had brought with them was exhausted and still the 
little steamer was loaded as heavily as ever. Then 
it was decided, after Jeannette had walked for some 
miles over the Red River raft, inspecting it and 
rejoicing in her knowledge of it, to return to the 
Mississippi without other stops than those that 
might be necessary to pick up freight, left here 
and there, or to secure a supply of wood now and 
then. 


282 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


From the mouth of the Red River to New Or- 
leans, the Blue Wing made no stops at all. She 
had taken on a good supply of wood as she came 
down the Red River, and she still had much of her 
coal left as a reserve. Theodore, who had been 
studying the markets very carefully, saw advan- 
tage not only in getting his cotton to New Orleans 
promptly, but still more in getting to St. Louis 
as soon as possible with his sugar, molasses, 
oranges, and great bales of the long gray moss. 
For Theodore had learned from his previous deal- 
ings in saddle blankets that a new industry had 
sprung up in St. Louis, namely, the manufacture 
of saddle blankets out of the Southern moss. He 
knew that as yet the supply of the moss upon 
which the manufacturers depended as their raw 
material was uncertain and sadly inadequate. So 
on his way up the Red River he had engaged 
many of the people to gather the moss and put it 
into bales, ready for him to take on board on his 
downward trip. He had in this way secured at 
very little cost great quantities of an article for 
which he knew he should find a market at com- 
paratively high prices if he could deliver it in St. 
Louis in time for it to be manufactured for gov- 
ernment use in the spring. 

The Blue Wing tarried at New Orleans only 


HOMEWARD BOUND 283 

long enough to put her cotton ashore, arrange for 
its sale, and take on some further quantities of sugar 
and molasses which Theodore had bought there. 

Then with all necessary food supplies on board, 
and with only crew enough to manage the boat, 
the Blue Whig cast off her lines from the wharf 
and started up the river on her voyage of about 
thirteen hundred miles, against the current, to St. 
Louis. 

“ It will be a long voyage,” said Allan, as the 
boat backed out into the stream under a rosy 
Southern sunset. 

“ How long will it take us, Allan ? ” asked Jean- 
nette. 

“ About nine days, or nearly that,” he answered. 

“ Nine days ! ” exclaimed Edgar. “ Why steam- 
boats often do it in four days or less.” 

“ Yes, but not the Blue Wing. She’s a com- 
fortable old tub with a large capacity for carrying 
freight, and we have been very happy on board 
of her. But she has very little power, and she is 
loaded down to the water’s edge. The steamboats 
that go from New Orleans to St. Louis in four or 
five days are side-wheelers with large power, and 
with no cargo worth considering.” 

“ But, Allan,” asked Jeannette, “why do they 
build steamboats with so little power?” 


284 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ For the same reason that they build flat-boats 
with no power at all. Power costs — both in pro- 
viding the engines and boilers necessary to give it 
and in running them after they are provided. 
When men want to transport things from one 
place to another, the first question in their minds 
is: ‘ How can the goods be moved at least cost? ’ ” 

“ Then why are the fast boats built at all ? Why 
aren’t they all underpowered?” 

“ Because sometimes time is an important con- 
sideration. Sometimes there is profit in getting 
things to market quickly. Then, again, every 
steamboat must employ a good many men — a cap- 
tain, pilots, engineers, deck hands, etc. All these 
must be paid wages and fed, and the longer the 
boat is in making her voyage the more her owners 
must pay out for wages and for the support of the 
crew.” 

“I think I understand,” said Jeannette. “The 
two things are nicely balanced. Sometimes it is 
cheaper to spend money on speed, and sometimes it 
is cheaper to go slowly. Yes, I understand that.” 

“ There’s another thing,” said the little doctor. 
“ If- all steamboats were high-powered there are 
many trades in which they could not be profitably 
used at all. Take our own case for example. If 
we had had to buy a high-powered steamboat at 


HOMEWARD BOUND 285 

twice or thrice what the Blue Wing cost us, why 
we simply couldn’t have made this trip at all. As 
it was, we had no need for speed, and so we 
bought a boat that cost very little, but answered 
all our purposes. If we had bought a high-pow- 
ered boat we should have lost most of the money 
we started with. As it is — well, how is it, Theo- 
dore ? Where are we coming out ? ” 

“I’ll tell you to-morrow, doctor,” answered the 
young captain. “ I must do some careful figuring 
first. But at any rate, we haven’t lost money by 
the venture. You may be very sure of that.” 

It was supper time now, and after supper the 
little doctor and Allan sat with the others upon 
the guards and told them stories in the moonlight 
— stories of the great river, and of Louisiana, 
and of the conquest of a continent, until finally the 
little doctor ordered Jeannette to her berth, and 
she resolutely refused to go unless the story tell- 
ing should be stopped until such time as she could 
be with the party again. Thereupon the little 
doctor ordered all to bed, and all obeyed except 
Captain Theodore. He went to the clerk’s office 
and spent the better part of the night in diligent 
figuring. The results seemed to satisfy him, and 
an hour or so after midnight he went to his berth 
and fell promptly into a contented sleep. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 

During the next day, as the Blue Wing slowly 
toiled up the river, Theodore summoned all the 
party to a conference. 

“ I have a good many things to talk about,” he 
said. “ Some of them are pleasant, some quite the 
reverse. But we must talk them all over.” 

Jeannette’s face grew long at the suggestion 
that there were some unpleasant things to be 
talked about, and that shrewd little gentlewoman 
correctly guessed what these things were. 

“You have bad news from Paris, Theodore ? ” 
she half asked, half declared, for she was sure of 
her conjecture. 

“Yes,” the boy answered, “or at least the doc- 
tor has. He received a number of letters in New 
Orleans. Those that were written first gave us 
every reason to hope for our father’s recovery. 
The later ones told us frankly that he is and must 
always remain practically a blind man. If a per- 
son stands between him and a window through 
which the sunlight is pouring he can tell that there 

286 



THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 287 

is somebody there. But that is about all of sight 
that he has or ever will have. He is coming home 
six months hence. Meantime he is going to the 
south of France to regain his strength. Don’t let 
us talk of that,” and Theodore rose and went up 
the little stairway leading to the hurricane deck. 
Jeannette was less ashamed of the tears that 
trickled down her cheeks, so she let them flow. 

Presently Theodore returned. 

“ Now I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “ Our 
father began life at the bottom, and it was his 
just pride that he had succeeded in making a ca- 
reer for himself. When disaster came to him he 
met it without a murmur, as all of you know. It 
is for us to repair it, so that in the years that he 
has yet to live he may be happy. With your as- 
sistance, and with the assistance that the doctor 
has generously offered me, I’m going immediately 
to re-establish the Highflyer line of steamboats 
from Cincinnati to St. Louis, which was his 
pride.” 

“ But how can we do it, Teddy? ” broke in Ed. 
“ Of course you’ll have all the assistance we can 
give you. But there must be two good boats 
and — 

“ I’ve thought of all that. There are to be two 
good boats. One of them is to be a new High- 


288 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


flyer and the other a new Morning Star . They 
are to be better boats than the old ones, and we’ll 
re-establish the line. When father reaches Cincin- 
nati on his return journey he shall find one of his 
own boats waiting there for him, either the High- 
flyer or the Morning Star , and he shall come 
home feeling that after all his life-work is not lost.” 

“ But how are we to do all this, Teddy? ” asked 
Edgar. 

“ Wait a minute and I will explain it all to you. 
I have figured on it for a good while now and I 
think I know where we stand. In the first place 
this trading trip with the Blue Wing has been ex- 
ceedingly profitable. As nearly as I can figure it 
out, when we sell our sugar, molasses, and oranges 
at St, Louis and then sell the boat for what she 
will bring, we shall have a total of twelve or fifteen 
thousand dollars belonging to ourselves, besides 
the doctor’s share in our partnership. Now the 
doctor and I have talked this thing over, and he is 
going to continue as a partner in our enterprises. 
He tells me that he is ready to put in another ten 
or fifteen thousand dollars if necessary to enable 
us to build the steamboats.” 

“ I did not say anything of the kind,” said the 
little doctor. 

“ Why, doctor, what do you mean? ” 


THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 289 

“ I did not use the expression, ‘ if necessary,’ at 
all. I told you I stood ready to put that amount 
of money into the partnership and I made no con- 
dition whatsoever. Please do not misquote me, 
Theodore Faraday. I won’t stand it. Particular- 
ly when the misquotation so badly misrepresents 
me.” 

“ Well, I take it back, doctor. I did not mean 
to misquote you. At any rate the amount of it is 
this, we can raise among us, including the doctor’s 
share, something more than twenty-five thousand 
dollars with which to build the new boats. The 
rest of their cost can be carried as a lien upon 
them until they earn it in the trade, and you all 
know how very profitable that trade from Cincin- 
nati to St. Louis is. It is the very best thing on 
the river, and having our father’s name to trade 
on and the two steamboats bearing the names of 
those that were lost, we shall have no difficulty in 
getting our full share of it. In fact, we shall have 
no difficulty in getting all that we can handle and 
more.” 

“ But, Theodore, why are we going so heavily in 
debt?” asked Edgar. “Why shouldn’t we build 
one of the boats and wait for her earnings to build 
the other? ” 

“ For the simple reason, my dear brother, that if 
19 


290 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


we are going to do this business at all we must 
have at least two boats ; otherwise the length of 
time between sailings would be so great that we 
should lose the advantage of regular and contin- 
uous service. All these things count, and I have 
thought them all out, and after all we shall not be 
in a strict sense of the word in debt at all. The 
boats themselves will represent all that we have 
put into them — all our indebtedness upon them 
and something more. It is not as if we owed 
money for which we had nothing to show. It will 
amount simply to this, that those who loan us the 
money in aid of our enterprise will in effect own 
an interest in our boats until we can buy them 
out with our earnings by paying off the little 
debt.” 

At this point Joe, who had sat still during all 
the conversation, arose, passed around in front of 
the party, and seated himself upon the taffrail. 
All of them saw that Joe had something important 
to say. 

“ I do not know why you leave me out of this 
question,” he said. “ I haven’t forgotten what you 
have done for me, and I am not going to forget it 
until somebody knocks another hole in my head 
and makes me forget everything. Now you re- 
member that my brother and I have a neat little 


THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 


291 


shipyard down there just below St. Louis, and we 
can turn out as good a pair of boats as there are 
on the river. I don’t see why you shouldn’t let us 
have the job. We will do it as cheaply as any 
other shipbuilders can, and as for the deferred 
payment on the cost of building you can let that 
stand as long as you please ; or if you prefer it, as 
I do, we will become stockholders in the company 
to that extent, and so there will be no debt at all 
upon the steamboat line.” 

This was a new thought to Theodore. Some- 
how he had not even yet got over his habit of 
thinking of Joe as a dependent imbecile. He knew, 
of course, that Joe was in fact a pretty well-to-do 
shipbuilder, but he often forgot the fact. It had 
not occurred to him to negotiate with Joe for the 
building of the two boats, but this opened an easy 
way out of all their difficulties. 

Joe figured a little after asking a few questions 
about the size, style, and speed of the proposed 
boats, and before the conversation was over it was 
arranged that he should build them for a certain 
price, taking, in part payment, the money that the 
Faraday firm had, taking a certain share of stock 
in the company for a part of the remainder, and 
leaving the rest to be paid in instalments out of 
the earnings of the boats. 


292 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


“ Now in order to do this thing right,” said the 
little doctor, “ we must organize ourselves into a 
stock company. We’ll call it the Tom Faraday 
Steamboat Company. We will capitalize it at ex- 
actly the cost of the boats. And if there is any 
doubt about the solvency of that company, why I 
know a little Illinois doctor who has run away 
from his practice, who will take care of that busi- 
ness. You’ll be captain of the Highflyer , Theo- 
dore, of course. We’ll have to hire another cap- 
tain for the Morning Star , for of course Allan and 
Edgar are going back to their books just as soon 
as we get to St. Louis.” 

“ Of course,” said Theodore, “ it is part of my 
program, and has been from the first, that they 
shall have their education. I have become a 
steamboat man, and I shall follow the career of 
my father. It seems to me something worth a 
young fellow’s while to re-create in this way the 
business which his father spent a lifetime in build- 
ing up.” 

At that point in the conversation the party sud- 
denly broke up as if by common consent. All 
went in different directions and to different parts 
of the boat. Each had a handkerchief in his hand 
and there was a dampness around the eyelids of 
each. It was observable that Joe alone laughed. 


THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 293 

“ I always did get even with people that did 
things to me,” he said, “and this is the best get- 
ting even I ever did in my life.” 

The boys were happy, of course, in the now cer- 
tain prospect of rebuilding their father’s business, 
and the rest of the voyage to St. Louis was joyous 
in the extreme. Arriving there all set to work at 
their appointed tasks. Edgar and Allan entered 
school. Theodore, Joe, and the doctor set to 
work upon the task of building the boats. 

Three months later the new Highflyer , loaded 
to the guards, and with Capt. Theodore Faraday 
on her deck, drew out from the levee at St. Louis 
on her first voyage to Cincinnati. One week later 
the new Morning Star did the same. 

The story had gone abroad among shippers at 
both ends of the line and all along the river of 
how the Faraday boys had worked to restore their 
father’s fortunes, and there was everywhere a 
generous disposition to “give the boys a chance.” 

Their business prospered from the beginning, 
and before a year had passed they added to their 
line a third and larger boat, built to ply, not from 
Cincinnati, but from Portland, below Louisville, 
to St. Louis. This was done in answer to a need. 
The boat was too large to pass through the canal 


294 


RUNNING THE RIVER 


at Louisville, and so it could not ply from Cincin- 
nati. But the traffic of St. Louis with the east 
was so rapidly growing now that there was use for 
such a boat on the western end of the line. Theo- 
dore named her the Blue Wing , “ just for mem- 
ory’s sake,” he said. 

Then came a great bereavement. One morning 
when the little doctor was called to breakfast he 
did not respond. A little later it was discovered 
that his long life had come to an end in sleep. 
When his affairs were looked into it was found 
that he had made Jeannette the sole heir of all his 
possessions, and a letter to her was found in which 
he had cheerfully written : 

“ My dear Jeannette . 

“ I am getting very well along in life now and 
I am having trouble with my heart — trouble of a 
kind that must presently make an end of me. So 
I am writing you this letter which you will read 
only after I am gone. Let me tell you a little 
story. Many, many years ago when I was young, 
I married a dear little woman who looked like 
you, talked like you, and was like you. She was 
taken away from me while we were both yet 
young. After that I spent years in looking for 
some one who should remind me of her. When I 
first saw you up there on the Illinois River, I 


THE WAY IT ALL ENDED 295 

knew that I had found the girl I had so long 
hunted for. That is why I decided to take charge 
of you and educate you. Now I am not going to 
live long enough to see you graduate, as I hoped 
at one time to do. But you are to graduate all the 
same. I have written out a plan for your educa- 
tion, and as I am leaving you an abundance of 
money, I want to ask you to carry it out, just by 
way of gratifying the little old doctor. 

“ I have selected the school that you are to at- 
tend. I have arranged, as you will see, with some 
one there who will superintend the making of that 
graduating gown, and I am enclosing in this a re- 
ceipt from the florist for the flowers that are to be 
sent to you on that occasion. 

“ Carry out this program, Jeannette, just for love 
of the little old doctor, who had hoped to carry it 
out himself.’’ 

All that he asked Jeannette lovingly did, happy 
in the thought that a spirit so greatly good as his 
could not die, and that somewhere in the unseen 
world the little doctor saw and knew and rejoiced. 


THE END 


































































































































































* 












* 































































A GREAT AMERICAN HISTORICAL 
STORY 


The Ark of 1803 

A STORY OF LOUISIANA PUR- 
CHASE TIMES 

By C. A. STEPHENS 


This is a story of American adventure and 
American pluck in the days when the fron- 
tier was on the east side of the Mississippi. 
The pioneers who fought Indians and beasts 
found that their way to market lay down 
the Ohio and other tributaries of the Mis- 
sissippi to New Orleans, held by the Span- 
iards. To their pressure was really due the 
Louisiana Purchase. What this strange 
frontier life was which played so large a 
part in American history is pictured in Mr. 
Stephens’s story. He tells of the adventures 
of pioneer school boys. He shows the flat- 
boat afloat and the perils from bandits and 
floods, from beasts and men, which those 
young heroes faced. He sketches pictur- 
esque New Orleans as it was when it passed 
to us. One of the greatest chapters of Amer- 
ican history lives in this dramatic story by 
one of the most popular of American writers. 


l2mo, doth . Illustrated. $ 1.25 net 
A new 'bolume in the East and West Series 


A. S. BARNES C& CO. 


FORj YOUNGER READERS 

NEW 

FORTUNES 

Horn) Molly and Her brothers Came to 
Moulder Gulch 

By Mabel Earle 


“ Fresh, strong, thoroughly 
American.” 

— Boston Herald. 

“A fascinating story.” 

— Pittsburg Times. 


The First Volume in the East and West 
Series for Younger Readers 


l2mo, cloth . Illustrated . $1,25, net 


A. S. BARNES C& CO. 



A MISSISSIPPI ROMANCE 


TENNESSEE 

TODD 

A Novel of the Great River 

By G. W. Ogden 


“Vivid and unhackneyed.” 

— N. Y. Times. 

“ A dramatic story. Mr. Og- 
den has given us a true 
picture of steamboat life, the 
only one since Mark Twain’s 
famous stories. This novel 
is certain of success.” 

— N. Y. A merican. 

“A good story. Tennessee 

Todd is a great girl.” 

—N. Y. Sun. 

I2mo, cloth . With frontispiece. $1.50 


A. S. BARNES C& CO. 



A STORY OF THE COAST 


CAP’N ERI 

By Joseph C. Lincoln 


Mr. Lincoln is one of the most success- 
ful of American short story writers. His 
stories of Cape Cod in the Saturday 
Evening Post , and other periodicals, 
have proved widely popular. Mr. 
Lincoln’s sense of humor is genuine 
and unforced, and his short stories 
have been in constant demand among 
editors and have attracted universal 
attention. Cap'n Eri is a fresh, origi- 
nal, human story of a coast town in 
Cape Cod. Cap’n Eri himself is one of 
the quaintest and delightfully amusing 
characters of recent fiction. There 
can be no question as to the popularity 
of the first novel by this successful 
story writer. He has told a charming 
love story and he has also pictured 
an original American character who 
will gain the affections of every reader. 

The striking illustrations in colors by 
Charlotte Weber, the text ornaments 
and other attractive features will be 
appreciated by all who value artistic 
books. 

Illustrated in colors by Charlotte Weber 
l2mo, cloth, $1,50 


A. S. BARNES C& CO. 



*®e STORY of A STORMY COURSE 

To Windward 

By Henry C. Rowland 

Author of “ Sea Scamps ” 


The freshness, spirit and force of Dr. 
Rowland’s first novel more than sus- 
tain the promise of his short stories. 
He tells in part a story of the sea, and 
in part the story of a man’s battle in 
New York. The go and spirit of the 
author’s style make themselves felt 
whether the hero is on the deck of a 
yacht or in the shifting scenes of New 
York life. Among other features of 
the book are episodes of a metropolitan 
surgeon’s life which have a wholly 
distinctive freshness and realism. As 
the title indicates, the hero beats up 
against stormy weather. How his 
eventful voyage ends it remains for the 
reader of this remarkably strong and 
dramatic novel to determine for 
himself. 

With frontispiece in color by Charlotte Weber 

l2mo, doth. $1.50 


A. S. BARNES C& CO. 



THE HOUSE 
IN THE WOODS 

By Arthur Henry 

Author of “An Island Cabin” 

This is the story of a return to nature ; 
the building of a mountain home, and 
the conquest of the soil. It is a nature 
book with human interest, and in ad- 
dition to the freshness and charm of 
the country life and the wood lore pic- 
tures in these pages, the story thrills 
with the humanity which the author 
has found and depicted with the origi- 
nality and freshness characteristic of 
true insight. He tells how the forest 
was cleared and a house was reared ; 
how a home was made, and the wild 
things of the mountains yielded place 
to their domesticated brethren. He 
pictures the prowess of the mountain- 
eers, the deeds of the woodsmen, and 
the influences which made themselves 
felt in a brighter life for the people of 
the woods. The beauty of nature in 
the mountains, the joy of existing out 
of doors, and the success, not of mere 
country living, but also of country fel- 
lowship, are brilliantly pictured in this 
delightful story of a new life in a 
Catskill Mountain home. 

l2mo, cloth . Illustrated. $1.50 

A. S. BARNES £& CO. 


2489 49 



AN IMMEDIATE SUCCESS 


THE BOSS 

A Story of the Inner Life of Ne<rv York 

By cAlfred Henry Lewis 


“ The most complete and 
remarkable exposition that 
has yet been produced.” 

— New York Times. 

“ Is not only a book to read, 
it is a book that every man 
who has an interest in his 
country — and in himself for 
that matter— must read.” 

— Chicago Evening Post. 
l2mo , doth . Illustrated by Glackens. $1*50 


A. S. BARNES CS, CO. 





- T v ' 

h ° 

* 

’ <r V. • 




^ S' 

$* j . wm=? ° & °?o o * < Vv^> - * 

^ v%3!5r** v-, oVjaw* ,4 r£ 

%> ' • • * .0 o *o - 7 * a v . , VwJw^» />v 

% ,0* j* 1 ?* ^ «<2> c o* 0 ^ '••* ' A° 



A^ V .. ^ ♦•Vo» -0 

V 5 O (\> 

\\Ss' 

o V«VW ** 

v * 4 ^ • 

°o A* *•!&:•.% 

\ ^ y o'j^m- V 







^ *#‘»* 4 * *0 % 

* * O* A. 4 V $ M 4 # " # 

^ - .V •* C* 

° .MaHsr. 




* „ i ^ V 

9 rtO Jfc * - 1 

a° V '*,.•’ o; 

4 <) > * * • 0 A v 

4 v >. _<> 

\y <*> 


^ ^ ^ \ 



*•.** .Or ?od a* ^ «? ^ o 

^ .0^ t* v l£* ^b * * <& c o « o ^ *' • • 5 4 J ^b 

V A A 0 ♦ &?ffl?7?-,'* 4^ ,4^ - C rvrx^ * » i * * ^ *£> 

.?£ :«£: If *8®,-- ^» 4 .-*--° 


4?r; 


rb 


.< o. 


» 

o 

ft 


: •ygw r s v ^ . 

*<* * 7 ^*^*^ ( 4 * <D *© ♦ A * A <*a 4 • * s A& 

4 '\-./<^ " ffy'XZ. °* ^\'&k**+-r <?< 

' <1 'MI// 2 >~'. V- A 0VSSIP&” •f^.Q* .'1 


**0« 


«b K 


,S°* 


/ / 

V*'" 

• % ^ : 

• vv ° 


0 Jp ,r ^ tt . 

v^‘ *°° %**»•’• 4 * ^ 

4 *°V— • ' 


*S°*. 


°o 


W> 

+ 




O » * 


. • &*+ 

;* v v- 


\ v «ja 

s • • # o 

^ . v tVfivV ■ 

o <V * 

•. ^ : 

a o 


- ®MgT * *s? ^ WJP 1 * 

VjWjC* ^ # '**>* 4 A 

V>. * • • * A U *£* A v 


o '* 0 ^* ^ *"’* v 

^ A* ,^o, *> V X* 

; : "V* :(§&■ °* 

j ^ . V«?> j ^§»i»iim§££ 2' o 'Cft O 




cv 

* X 

°. 'V« 

0 V 5 , ^J' 0 If 

,* Jp X °. 

» ^ ^ 4 l AV 

/ .‘ST;. ^ c . 

* ^ <§■ : 

♦* jy * 0 % 

'X A *' t,H<> 

% <X > 




% ^ ^ , 7 .-* A <* 

%> # * t , * J Q> 6 0 * • * & 

** X <-9 >l/>^!-» o j'* • JS s$SW*<. 




6^ 


0 : 



• ,0° *„ '♦-,•’ ^ 

0 ^ *«*°* **> V N **VJ^ 



• : 


’ ,o 

, 0 * A^k- -o 

0 *vs 0 ^*. ^ 

* *P ^ 

X **oVo° A?' ’<$> 

X *9* e * • t 

4 ,' **%£«•* 4> A> ♦ 

:m&m° %>«? 0 

^ ^rv o 



'« C V/ 2 SW* 



^ V X 

^ ^ % C? "O • » 

■* o • » * A <r> ^ * • 5 

> .•sir ■ % ** / 4 c^» °o , 


A 



■ 5 °* 








» 5 >° ^ 

v^* / ^ 

.*r ••••- ■ 

• ^ t # -’■ ' Ae 
- %p «p 

* # % 


> - v ^- / •-• 




X * • • * 1 # J ^ 

% / ,V^’ °o 

« 5 *o« • 





<V <*l> o 




So* 




